Rhubarb

Rhubarb (1951)

It's the Funniest Picture in Nine Lifetimes!

Rich, eccentric T.J. Banner adopts a feral cat who becomes an affectionate pet he names Rhubarb. Then T.J. dies, leaving to Rhubarb most of his money and a pro baseball team, the Brooklyn Loons. When the team protests, publicist Eric Yeager convinces them Rhubarb is good luck. But Eric's fiancée Polly seems to be allergic to cats, and the team's success may mean new hazards for Rhubarb.

Date of release
1951-08-29
TMDB
5.8 / 10 (9)
Runtime
1h 34m
Genres
Comedy, Family
Director
Arthur Lubin

Casting

Interesting facts

Rhubarb is a 1951 screwball comedy film adapted from the 1946 novel Rhubarb by humorist H. Allen Smith. The film was directed by Arthur Lubin and stars Ray Milland, Jan Sterling, William Frawley, Gene Lockhart and a cat named Orangey in the title role.

Production

The film is based on a 1946 book by humorist writer H. Allen Smith, his first novel. The New York Times called the book, which became a bestseller, a "rough and raucous satire".

Roy Del Ruth was interested in the film rights but stepped aside when Mike Todd expressed interest. Todd bought the film rights for $100,000 but then experienced financial troubles and was unable to pay. Smith was approached by other producers, one of whom wanted to change the cat to a dog and another who wanted the cat to inherit a burlesque house.

In December 1949, it was reported that Lubin had hired Frank Cockrell to write a script based on the novel, intending to film it after finishing Francis. In January 1950, Lubin hired Dorothy Reid, with whom he had collaborated numerous times, to work on the script. Lubin later claimed that the second half of the film was written by an uncredited George Seaton.

Lubin pitched the project to Universal Pictures and several other studios, all of which declined the project. In August 1950, Lubin struck a deal with Paramount Pictures. In September, the film was assigned to a production unit at Paramount run by William Perlberg and George Seaton. That same month, Ray Milland signed to star. Strother Martin and Leonard Nimoy have uncredited roles in the film.

Producers William Perlberg and George Sutton, seeking a "Jimmy Cagney sort of cat", received more than 3,000 letters and pictures from cat owners and auditioned more than 5,000 cats for the role of Rhubarb. The producers selected Orangey, an 18-pound orange-and-white cat owned by Agnes Murray of the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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