BECAUSE OF THE CATS

[Le Chiffre]

Here's the trailer for the 1973 film BECAUSE OF THE CATS, by the Oscar-winning Dutch filmmaker Fons Rademakers. It's based on Nicholas Frehling's 1963 novel about a vicious gang of "untouchable" rich kids. Orson Welles tried unsuccessfully to make a film of this same novel five years earlier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud75G0-8j8U

“Because of the Cats” is long-forgotten now, but it's a pretty well-made film; dark and brutal in spots, but still of interest because of Welles's interest in the story. The similarity to A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is perhaps one of the main reasons why the film was made: to try and capitalize on the success of Kubrick's film. Sylvia Kristel, the soft-core porn star who passed away recently, makes a brief appearance in the film, and Canadian actress Alexandra Stewart plays Feodora, a local prostitute involved with one of the gang leaders. This part would have been played by Oja Kodar in Welles' film. It's not known what part Welles himself would have played, if he had intended to appear in the film at all.

At the University of Michigan's Welles/Oja Kodar archive, there are four folders devoted to Because of the Cats, including several script drafts and production materials from 1969. It would be interesting to know what attracted Welles to this story, although the idea of teenage thugs who violate women is something that was seen in TOUCH OF EVIL as well. And in a strange way, the story also has echoes of FALSTAFF.

Hans Van Hemert singing the title song:
http://purepop1uk.blogspot.com/2008/04/ ... -cats.html

[ToddBaesen]

Welles must have been drawn to it because of SINGING IN THE RAIN.

Seriously, I find this rather fascinating. Was Welles simply indulging his mistress, Oja, or was he truly interested in the the project.

Sadly, I must say Oja Kodar has very little talent, in any way shape or form, except for her shape and form.

[Le Chiffre]

Now now, Todd. She's reputed to be a talented sculptress, and her statue of Welles in Split, Croatia is very good, although I've only seen it in photos, like the one at Ray's OW Memorials page:

http://www.wellesnet.com/?page_id=2606

As far as what attracted Welles to BECAUSE OF THE CATS, I think he may have been intrigued by the story's analysis of disaffected youth coming under the influence of a malevolent genius, and probably saw some parallels with the rise of Naziism. The '73 film seems to have some subtle allusions to the Manson family as well. but of course, Welles tried to make his film before they ever became news. But you're certainly right that finding a good part for Oja also seems to have been a very high priority for Welles during this period.

*

Here are some excerpts from the BECAUSE OF THE CATS novel:

Feodora: “This people here is very bourgeois, because they are very proud of their fine new town. They do not like anything to disturb the pattern…here they do their dirty tricks in the dark…so their virtue does not get spotted…they say dirty whore; I say filthy bourgeois…Their children, they grow up; they don’t fit in either world…Who will they make friends with? Sometimes with bad types.”

This gang (The Ravens) had something oddly adult about it, and uncharacteristically vicious. Now, imagine an adult who had some motive for making war on society…to use for his warfare, a fifth column; the members of that very society in embryo. A new aristocracy.

In order to remain free from suspicion and discovery, this man would need to possess an unusual power over the gangs. Boy gangsters were efficient, and fanatically brave, active skilful, quick, and calm.

He had a contempt for civilization. Where others used art to fill their sense of unfulfillment, he used crime.

Many English people blamed the bomb for everything, but to go on about the bomb was hypocritical tripe. We cured the plague and invented the bomb to take it’s place. Camus’ plague was Fascism…and it was never gotten rid of. Zola’s plague was the mines that he thought a new world would grow out of.

Society was a fermenting mass, a huge pot of pig-swill, boiling on fires of hatred and envy, of bad education and war, poverty and starvation, homelessness and joblessness. The scum rose to the top, where the police were supposed to skim them off with a ridiculously tiny spoon.

The state was foolish, but to do one’s duty was important. People despised the Germans for obeying the state. That was surely illogical. They might be blamed for creating that state, but not for obeying it.

1940 was a plague year. His generation was unlucky to have to go to war instead of finishing their education in peace. If they hadn’t gone to war they would have tasted the bitterness of unemployment and gang riots. Instead they were given guns and told to go kill Germans; a fine hunter’s license. Young men of eighteen were natural warriors, hunters, raptors. To channel those instincts into commercial throat cutting and financial rape was an unworthy ambition. Weren’t the gangs making a gesture against a society that sent them to classes to learn how to make money? But to talk like that was to be branded as atheist, or anarchist.

Men who keep bars, restaurants, cabarets, are predators too. In those businesses, it was instinctive to despise society. They see the captains of industry and the most respected members of society drunk and maudlin; like bored and whining children. If a barkeeper was bored with making money he could become a dangerous man.

The young gang members who used the upper rooms of the bar had a disdain for the herd. They made their own rules; their own self-government, like a society in miniature. Sons and daughters of the most influential figures in town; they were the future rulers of the town. They took the raven as a symbol of the top layer of aristocracy.

The police were there to protect the people, but the courts were there to protect the rich. The police that got promoted were the ones who caused the courts no trouble.