Rhubarb
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Arthur Lubin
Ray Milland
Jan Sterling
Gene Lockhart
William Frawley
Elsie Holmes
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Impressed by the spunk of a mangy, orange tom cat, who steals country club golf balls and chases large dogs, eccentric millionaire Thaddeus J. Banner, the owner of the lackluster Brooklyn Loons baseball club, decides to adopt the animal. Using a state-of-the-art trap, T. J.'s press agent, Eric Yeager, captures the feisty cat and presents him to his boss, who names him Rhubarb. Upon his release, Rhubarb wrecks T. J.'s study, but eventually makes friends with his owner. After enjoying many years of companionship with Rhubarb, T. J. dies and leaves most of his $30 million estate to his pet. To the disgust of T. J.'s spoiled daughter Myra, who is to receive only a modest stipend, Eric is named Rhubarb's guardian and moves into the Banner estate. Rhubarb's inheritance makes him an overnight celebrity, and Eric and his butler, retired baseball pitcher Doom, are besieged by phone calls, telegrams and visitors. Eric must also contend with the Loons, who are refusing to play because their competitors are razzing them about their feline owner. To get the Loons back on the field, Eric introduces Rhubarb to the team, then secretly arranges for the two players who voluntarily pet the cat to receive an unexpected tax refund. As hoped, the superstitious athletes become convinced that Rhubarb is a good-luck charm and agree to play again. Eric's relief proves short-lived, however, when he learns that his fiancée, Polly Sickles, the daughter of team manager Len, is violently allergic to cats and he must disinfect himself every time he sees her. After Rhubarb's appearance at the Loons's ball park inspires the team to score against St. Louis, the St. Louis manager sicks his dog mascot on the cat. Instead of running away, Rhubarb chases the terrified canine across the field. The Loons win, and Eric, who has arranged to marry Polly right after the game, rushes home to remove all traces of Rhubarb from his body. On his way to the church, Eric realizes that he has forgotten the wedding ring and returns home, only to find Myra trying to kill Rhubarb. Eric saves the cat and orders Myra to move out, but has to postpone the wedding when the team insists that he stay with Rhubarb around the clock. Rhubarb joins the team during their next road trip, but while the Loons's record steadily improves, Eric grows increasingly lonely. Desperate, he and Polly make plans to marry in secret, but are again thwarted when Myra files a lawsuit against Eric, charging that the real Rhubarb is dead. To prove her claim, Myra's lawyers demand that Eric's supporters pick out Rhubarb from a group of four orange tabbies. Although no one can identify Rhubarb by sight, Polly, who has just learned from her doctor that she is allergic only to Rhubarb, verifies his identity when she sniffs each cat but sneezes only around Rhubarb. After determining that no irritants were used on Rhubarb, the judge dismisses Myra's suit. With Rhubarb's troubles apparently over, the Loons move into first place and enter a pennant race with New York. Betting on the cross-town matchup is intense, and when Manhattan bookie Pencil Louie realizes that he will have to pay out $270,000 if Brooklyn wins the series, he kidnaps Rhubarb. He then offers to kill the cat if Myra can raise $50,000. Without Rhubarb, the Loons start to lose, and all attempts to track the cat down fail. During the final game, Eric rents a plane and seeds some clouds with dry ice to cause a rainstorm. The game is postponed, but when the Brooklyn police chief gets a tip that a Manhattan bookie has Rhubarb, the Manhattan chief refuses to help. Aware now that what she is actually allergic to is the vicuna scarf on which Rhubarb sleeps, Polly and Eric scour Manhattan betting parlors until Polly's allergy leads them to Pencil Louie and Myra. After Eric pummels him, the bookie reveals Rhubarb's whereabouts, and Eric and Polly rush to the apartment hideout. There, Rhubarb, who is watching the final game on television, becomes excited when the female cat who always sits behind him at the stadium appears onscreen, and escapes from his captor. Eric and Polly see Rhubarb running toward Brooklyn and follow him in a cab, pursued by Pencil Louie and his thugs. The police finally arrest the thugs, and after climbing the stadium wall, Rhubarb dashes across the field as the crowd roars its approval. With Rhubarb back, the Loons win the game and the pennant. Later, Eric and Polly and their new baby, and Rhubarb and his mates and kittens enjoy a stroll through the park together.
Director
Arthur Lubin
Cast
Ray Milland
Jan Sterling
Gene Lockhart
William Frawley
Elsie Holmes
Taylor Holmes
Willard Waterman
Henry Slate
James J. Griffith
Jim Hayward
Donald Macbride
Hal K. Dawson
Rhubarb
Paul Douglas
Strother Martin
Hilda Plowright
Adda Gleason
Richard Karlan
Edwin Max
Anthony Radecki
Leonard Nimoy
Bill Thorpe
Frank Fiumara
Lee Miller
Roberta Richards
Ira Stewart
Roy Gordon
Stuart Holmes
Eric Wilton
Wilbur Mack
Rex Moore
Joe Terry
Harold J. Kennedy
Harry Varteresian
Hans Herbert
Al Ferguson
Paul Maxey
Douglas Wood
Harry Cheshire
Herrick Herrick
Stanley Mckay
Micheline Lange
Stanley Orr
Douglas Carter
John Breen
Grace Lenard
Edward Clark
Howard Gardiner
Tristram Coffin
Arthur Lovejoy
Ruth Packard
Gus Taillon
Carl Saxe
Billy Wayne
Howard Negley
Donald Kerr
Edward Biby
Mike P. Donovan
Ralph Sanford
James Flavin
John Russell Daly
Mack Gray
Jack Daly
Don Haggerty
Wallace J. Hood
George Sherwood
Bill Meader
Herman Boden
Dolly Jarvis
Henry Wise
Charles Sullivan
Madge Blake
Buck Harington
Sandra Gould
Oliver Blake
Sam Pierce
Will Orlean
Frank Scannell
Ben Welden
Frank Sully
Jerry James
Gail Bonney
Joe Bryan
Charles Campbell
Billie Bird
Jack Stoney
Joe Ploski
Dorothy Vernon
Sedal M. Bennett
Billy Vincent
Curtis Jarrett
Crew
Henry Bumstead
Francis Cockrell
Geraldine Cole
Sam Comer
John Cope
Chico Day
Ross Dowd
Ray Evans
Edith Head
Frank Inn
Arthur Jacobson
Gordon Jennings
Lionel Lindon
Jay Livingston
Alma Macrorie
Harry Mills
William Mull
Hal Pereira
William Perlberg
Dr. Charles Reid
Dorothy Reid
George Seaton
David Stern
Van Cleave
Wally Westmore
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Now listen ya lug, you're in the chips now, the blue chips. So stop acting like a goon squad. This is an okay dame. She doesn't want a nickel of your dough.- Eric Yeager
stroke him very gently on his head.- Eric Yeager
Why, he doesn't even hiss.- Polly Sickles
You're now a member of the club.- Eric Yeager
A Rhubarb. It's a donnybrook... a dust-up...- Ball Player
Lady, you know what happens at a sale, when two women get hold of the same dress? THAT's a Rhubarb!- Eric Yeager
.- Eric Yeager
Trivia
Fourteen different cats portrayed Rhubarb at different points in the film. Each cat was trained to do a different trick. Three of the most identical cats appeared in the courtroom scene where Polly Sickles has to choose which one is the real Rhubarb.
Notes
According to a Hollywood Reporter news item, independent producer Mike Todd purchased the screen rights to H. Allen Smith's best-selling novel Rhubarb in October 1946. Although credited onscreen as "Rhubarb," the star's real name was Orangey Murray. His complete onscreen credit reads: "and introducing the newest addition to Hollywood's great galaxy of stars-that dynamic, exciting, scintillating personality Rhubarb (by special arrangement with the S.P.C.A., A.H.A., Y.M.C.A., U.C.L.A, B.P.O.E., R.F.C.)."
According to news items and studio publicity material, contained in the file on the film at the AMPAS Library, producers William Perlberg and George Seaton spent six months searching for a cat to play Rhubarb and held auditions to find one. Bing Crosby and James Mason reportedly offered their cats for the part. After reviewing hundreds of applications, the producers selected Orangey Murray, a former stray cat from Sherman Oaks. Frank Inn, assistant trainer of Lassie, trained Orangey Murray for the part. According to publicity, Orangey Murray was given his own dressing room and Hollywood apartment, where he lived with his stand-ins during filming. The last scene in the film includes a gag in which Rhubarb and his new cat family are seen passing by actor Paul Douglas as he sits on a park bench reading a newspaper. Douglas, who won acclaim in the 1949 Twentieth Century-Fox film A Letter to Three Wives, notices the long line of cats and kittens trailing Rhubarb and says, "What a cat-a litter from three wives!"
Athlete-turned-actor Jim Thorpe's adopted son Bill Thorpe, also known as William Thurlby, made his screen debut in the production. Hollywood Reporter news items add Hank Wells, James Conaty and Jack Gerrlings to the cast, but their appearance in the final film has not been confirmed. Publicity material notes that the film's baseball scenes were shot at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. According to a publicity item contained in the film's copyright records, songwriters Jay Livingston and Ray Evans wrote a jingle for the mock television commercial that is used in one scene. Rhubarb marked Seaton and Perlberg's first release as a production team at Paramount. According to an August 1951 Variety item, Paramount promoted the picture by planting a phony story in the New York World Telegram about an Orangey Murray kidnapping and sponsoring "meet Rhubarb" events at supermarkets. Although Hollywood Reporter announced in March 1951 that Lubin was planning a sequel to Rhubarb called Rhubarb's Daughter, no film sequel was ever made. In 1967, author Smith published a sequel to his novel, entitled Son of Rhubarb.
