A cat abuses his mouse-slave, serenades a girl-cat and devises a mousetrap..
United States

Nobody prepares you for the chill that creeps up your spine when a cartoon cat from 1920 croons a love song while his prisoner mouse tightens the screws on its own coffin. A Cat’s Life—often buried in mildewed film cans under the reductive label “early animation curio”—is a serrated little morality play that refuses ...

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Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.

Paul Terry

Charley Chase
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" Nobody prepares you for the chill that creeps up your spine when a cartoon cat from 1920 croons a love song while his prisoner mouse tightens the screws on its own coffin. A Cat’s Life—often buried in mildewed film cans under the reductive label “early animation curio”—is a serrated little morality play that refuses to stay politely archival. Paul Terry’s inked sadist swaggers across the frame with the unhurried confidence of a Bourbon Street pimp, every line of his body a hieroglyph of entitl..."

