Dotty multi-millionaire TJ Banner (Gene Lockhart) leaves his entire fortune to a fierce ginger cat called Rhubarb – who also inherits a failing baseball team, the Brooklyn Loons.
The team’s publicity agent, Eric Yeager (Ray Milland) is nominated as the cat’s guardian, bringing no end of complications to his career and love life – his fiancée Polly Sickles (Jan Sterling) is allergic to Rhubarb and has a sneezing fit whenever he’s around.
Meanwhile, Banner’s spoiled and nasty daughter Myra (Elsie Holmes) plots to dispose of Rhubarb so she can get her hands on her late father’s money.
But it turns out that the cat has a magical influence on the ailing Brooklyn team, who win every time he attends one of their games. Soon the players are rubbing his head for good luck and the Loons are heading for the World Series.
Almost inevitably, the cat is kidnapped by the bookies to keep him from showing up at the Loons’ critical seventh game at Banner Field in Brooklyn against the Yankees
The cat out-acts everyone in sight, which is no mean feat considering the cast. A young Leonard Nimoy makes an uncredited appearance as a baseball player.
Fourteen different cats portrayed Rhubarb at different points in the film. Each cat was trained to do a different trick.
Eric Yeager
Ray Milland Polly Sickles
Jan Sterling Thaddeus ‘TJ’ Banner
Gene Lockhart Len Sickles
William Frawley Myra Banner
Elsie Holmes P. Duncan Munk
Taylor Holmes Orlando Dill
Willard Waterman Dud Logan
Henry Slate Ogelthorpe ‘Oggie’ Meadows
James Griffith Doom
Jim Hayward Pheeny
Donald MacBride Mr Fisher
Hal K. Dawson
But it turns out that the cat has a magical influence on the ailing Brooklyn team, who win every time he attends one of their games. Soon the players are rubbing his head for good luck and the Loons are heading for the World Series.
