Rhubarb
Rhubarb, a previously unowned cat with a penchant for golf-balls ended up being the sole beneficiary of a millionaire’s estate. Said estate included a baseball team that was not quite touching the bases, so to speak.
However with the cat as owner-cum-mascot, the players on the team found the inspiration to make it to the top of the league. With various diversions and obstructions on the way there as usual. A good movie if you are a baseball fan or a cat-lover. Better still if you are both.
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The movie Rhubarb, produced by Paramount Pictures and directed by Arthur Lubin in 1951 began with T.J. Banner, a golf-playing millionaire – are there other kinds of millionaires? – trying to solve the mystery of his missing golf-balls. It took quite a bit of doing to track down the culprit, a cat. Finally, T.J. caught the cat, not without some effort, and named it Rhubarb. Rhubarb meaning a brawl in baseballspeak. Also meaning a plant with toxic leaves. There are supposedly some other meanings, too, not to be mentioned in polite society.
Fast forward a few years and T.J. went to the heavenly links leaving his entire estate to Rhubarb. Probably the cat would be happier to be left with just his entire golf-ball collection. As it is, the entire estate included a baseball team. Said team not quite making it in the rankings. Not quite by quite some way.
So, now as team owner-cum-mascot, Rhubarb had the daunting task of motivating the players to go the extra mile, or whatever it took to win more games. One by one, the players were converted, so to speak. Assorted characters including the opposing team, of course, thought otherwise of the new team spirit and tried to dampen their spirits.
They even went so far as to make the mistake of kidnapping Rhubarb. They should have known that people who had the acumen to make millions do not just pick any alley cat to inherit their estate. So Rhubarb had to show them why, the hard way. Actually, I would think that anything with four legs is more than a match for bipedals.
Rhubarb the cat was not alone in trying to make the late millionaire’s dream come true. There was Eric Yeager played by Ray Milland as the assigned guardian and protector of the cat. Rhubarb probably thought the inverse would be nearer to the truth. There was also Polly Sickles played by Jan Sterling as Eric’s fiancee who was also the daughter of the team manager. Of course, she had to be allergic to Rhubarb. And that put a big stop to her plans to marry Eric.
Rhubarb was apparently happily married. Three times, in fact, with lots of kittens to show off, too. I wonder how it had the time to manage it all, what with the team and games and interfering dogs, both two-legged and four-legged varieties.
Overall, the Rhubarb movie was entertaining, especially if you were a baseball fan or if you were a cat-lover. It would be a bonus if you were both. Even better if you were a millionaire wondering what would happen to your baseball team if you left them to fend for themselves. Off-hand, if you were a millionaire with such a problem, I would suggest cutting your losses and buying another baseball team.
Maybe, someday, some company like Catamount Pictures would make a movie about football and dogs. Dogs which actually chase cats instead of being the other way round like in the Rhubarb movie.
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