Hidden Genre Gems for Fans of Feline Follies: Cult Guide

Dir: Otto Messmer

A starving actor, reduced to trying his luck in the movies, travels to Hollywood. His cat, Felix, poses as a travel bag and comes along.

Dir: Otto Messmer

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Felix Strikes It Rich perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Felix organizes a dance contest for hens, but runs afoul of the chicken farmer because the hens aren't meeting their egg quotas. The farmer captures Felix and makes him dig his own grave before he "does him in", but at the last moment an unexpected event results in Felix avoiding his death sentence.

Dir: Otto Messmer

Felix and his friend little Sammy Johnson are playing baseball when they discover a map that leads to the undersea treasure of Lizzie the Pirate Queen. Building their own submarine, they slip beneath the waves in search of the treasure, and meet up with a variety of undersea creatures, including the most dangerous of all--the loan shark.

Dir: Otto Messmer

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Felix Tries for Treasure perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Felix lets a mouse out of a mousetrap. The mouse then offers to do Felix a favor--to help him sneak his friend out of the house so they can go swimming.

Dir: Otto Messmer

After unsuccessfully trying to steal food from a fish market, Felix is promised by a man that if he watches the man's child, he will be fed a great meal. Unfortunately, the baby swallows a balloon and floats out the window, and Felix has to find him and bring him back before the man gets home.

Dir: Otto Messmer

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Felix in the Swim perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Felix is sent as a gift to a poor elderly farmer. He decides to try to help the man run his farm, including milking the cows, taking care of the bees and running off a group of crows that's eating up the farmer's cornfield.

Dir: Otto Messmer

Felix the Cat becomes a soldier when the rats declare war on the cats.

Dir: Otto Messmer

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Felix Minds the Kid perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Felix goes after a butcher's sausages and captures them, but the butcher catches him and sends him to the Arctic to get rid of him.

Dir: Otto Messmer

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: Otto Messmer

A wife throws her husband out of the house, telling him not to return unless he brings her a fur coat. Deciding that the only way he'll get one is to make his own, he grabs his rifle and goes hunting. All his efforts fail, though, until he meets Felix, who offers to help him shoot rabbits, and impresses the man with his marksmanship skills. However, it turns out that shooting the rabbits isn't quite as easy as they thought it would be.