Customer Reviews

Three Lives of Thomasina [VHS]

5 star:		(76)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Paul Gallico's charming little story "Thomasina" is turned into an equally lovely little Disney film from 1964 directed by Don Chaffey ("Greyfriars Bobby"). Veterinarian Andrew MacDhui (Patrick McGoohan) is a widower who is raising his young daughter Mary (Karen Dotrice) in Scotland in 1912. Andrew has no empathy for the townsfolk who love their pets and when Mary's beloved cat Thomasina is injured he quickly decides the animal should be killed. Mary is distraught and Andrew simply cannot understand why the logic of the situation is not clear to the girl. Mary and her friends prepare an elaborate funeral for Thomasina, at which point Lori MacGregor (Susan Hampshire) shows up. The children think she is a witch, but in truth she lives in the woods and nurses injured animals back to health using love and common sense. Lori recognizes the cat is not dead and takes it home to help it recover, during which time Thomasina goes to Cat Heaven in a marvelously fanciful sequence. Andrew has a bad reputation with the locals because he killed his daughter's cat and they start taking their pets to Lori. Andrew finally goes to see her and is not so busy being impressed by her healing skills that he fails to fall in love with her. But then Mary sees Thomasina walking outside her house and chases after her in a driving storm and ends up catching pneumonia. The doctors hold out no hope to the frantic Andrew, and Lori tells him that only he can help Mary recover using the power of love.

Lots of Disney movies have a cold-hearted adult transformed into a human being, and "The Three Lives of Thomasina" is one of the best of this type of film, even better than "Pollyanna. " This is mainly because it has the virtue of a first-rate cast, from McGoohan, Hampshire and Dotrice as the three principles to Finlay Currie and Laurence Naismith standing out in the supporting cast. Elspeth March supplies the voice of Thomasina, who gets to comment on the action from time to time, and Matthew Garber, who went on with Dotrice to play the kids in "Mary Poppins," also has a small role. But at the heart of this film is Paul Gallico's endearing fable. I think this is just a nice little film and I am not even a cat person.

I remember watching this little gem on television in Concord, California around 1964! I loved this film as a child and just got my kids the video last night for a peek after some 37 (!) years. It's every bit as charming as Disney's earlier GREYFRIAR'S BOBBY (with Donald Crisp), and, thanks to a strong cast led by Patrick McGoohan and Susan Hampshire, infinitely more enjoyable! The film tells the story of a Scottish veterinarian Andrew MacDhui and daughter Mary, whose affection for a beautiful cat named Thomasina comes between them. When the cat is seriously injured, Mary's father "puts the cat to sleep" but Thomasina is disovered by Lori MacGregor, who nurses the cat back to health. Her love and understanding finally reunite father and daughter in the touching climax. Although the film wasn't a huge box-office success, it was considered one of the best foreign productions released by the Disney studio in the sixties.

Paul Gallico's charming little story "Thomasina" is turned into an equally lovely little Disney film from 1964 directed by Don Chaffey ("Greyfriars Bobby"). Veterinarian Andrew MacDhui (Patrick McGoohan) is a widower who is raising his young daughter Mary (Karen Dotrice) in Scotland in 1912. Andrew has no empathy for the townsfolk who love their pets and when Mary's beloved cat Thomasina is injured he quickly decides the animal should be killed. Mary is distraught and Andrew simply cannot understand why the logic of the situation is not clear to the girl. Mary and her friends prepare an elaborate funeral for Thomasina, at which point Lori MacGregor (Susan Hampshire) shows up. The children think she is a witch, but in truth she lives in the woods and nurses injured animals back to health using love and common sense. Lori recognizes the cat is not dead and takes it home to help it recover, during which time Thomasina goes to Cat Heaven in a marvelously fanciful sequence. Andrew has a bad reputation with the locals because he killed his daughter's cat and they start taking their pets to Lori. Andrew finally goes to see her and is not so busy being impressed by her healing skills that he fails to fall in love with her. But then Mary sees Thomasina walking outside her house and chases after her in a driving storm and ends up catching pneumonia. The doctors hold out no hope to the frantic Andrew, and Lori tells him that only he can help Mary recover using the power of love.

Lots of Disney movies have a cold-hearted adult transformed into a human being, and "The Three Lives of Thomasina" is one of the best of this type of film, even better than "Pollyanna. " This is mainly because it has the virtue of a first-rate cast, from McGoohan, Hampshire and Dotrice as the three principles to Finlay Currie and Laurence Naismith standing out in the supporting cast. Elspeth March supplies the voice of Thomasina, who gets to comment on the action from time to time, and Matthew Garber, who went on with Dotrice to play the kids in "Mary Poppins," also has a small role. But at the heart of this film is Paul Gallico's endearing fable. I think this is just a nice little film and I am not even a cat person.

This is the story of a little girl who loses her beloved cat, Thomasina, because her widowed veteranarian father refused to treat it, seeing "pets" as easily replacable. Enter the mysterious beautiful "witch" in the glen who takes in hurt animals and nurses them back to health, trusting in God and love to do the healing her hands cannot. This movie is not only a well done, entertaining story for all ages but it teaches a very valuable lesson we'd all do well to heed. I rated the movie itself a 5 but the scale does not go high enough to rate it's message. An excellent gift for children. God bless END

I'm a cynical person who hates any kind of emotional manipulation in a film, I'm easily bored by most things except hip hop and drum n bass.

I have watched this film many times and always on my own as it is guaranteed to reduce me to tears. The funeral scene is especially moving.

Perfect Sunday afternoon viewing after a hectic saturday night if you know what I mean. ;)

Guaranteed to melt you heart and leave you feeling that the world is a loving place, full of fluffy animals and wise children.

Finally. Here's a great Disney film that the studio has wisely chosen to release on DVD in a widescreen version. The letterboxing is correctly mild (1.66:1), and is SO WELCOME after, sadly, Disney has released so many of its classics from this era in crappy full-screen cropped versions. Thanks, Disney, for this DVD. Please keep releasing films in their correct aspect ratios...

Seeing action star/spy/"hard guy" Patrick McGoohan in a "Disney movie" was a novel experience, but then this didn't strike me as a typical Disney flick. For one thing, the predominant theme is death. McGoohan's wife is dead, the family cat is put to death, the daughter "kills and buries" her father (in her mind) - wow, pretty heavy stuff to lay on a young audience! McGoohan plays the part of a veterinarian in a small Scottish village, but when we're introduced to him, he's not exactly making friends with the locals. He immediately gets a reputation for heartlessness when he suggest to one woman that her very old dog is suffering and would be better off being put to sleep. (He throws in that he thinks she's being selfish, just in case he wasn't already cold-blooded enough!) The family crisis comes when he is in the middle of surgery on a blind man's dog. His daughter arrives with Thomasina, the family cat, who has contracted tetanus. He can't be bothered to even check her out, and instructs his assistant to put her down. Only the most stone-hearted will remain dry-eyed in the following trip to "cat heaven". But Thomasina's mission has only begun, and the remainder of the film is McGoohan's attempts to reconcile with his daughter and Thomasina's role in bringing them back together.

There are so many things about this movie that put it out of the ordinary. If they dropped the *very* Disney-esque opening theme song and filmed it more at an adult eye-level (it is filmed very much from the physical point of view of a child), and added a Merchant/Ivory sepia tone, this would be regarded as a great adult movie or "Masterpiece Theater" (think "All Creatures Great and Small") material. The Scottish accents (including at one scene in Gaelic) must have been incomprehensible to children's audiences when it was released, and Thomasina's "funeral", including bagpipes, bier, and procession through town, is not the sort of thing I'd imagine kids found cheery.

Totally unlike anything being made today, it isn't so much anachronistic as a reminder of how dumbed-down and emotionally sterile children's programming has become. It doesn't flog any specific message, but is definitely a movie that (if you can get a little one used to more frantic entertainment to sit through it) will make a deep and positive impression. Very highly recommended.

I am so excited that this movie is finally coming out on DVD! "Thomasina" is one of Disney's lesser-known films, but it's definitely one of the best. It's a very touching story about a young girl's relationship with her widowed father and her beloved cat. I will be first in line to purchase this DVD on the day it is released!

I remember seeing "The Three Lives of Thomasina" as a very young child and I never forgot it. It really touched me. Thinking back, what I remembered the most about the movie was the sequence in which Thomasina after losing her first life goes to cat heaven and climbs the stairs to see Bast the Egyptian Cat Goddess that sees over all cats who have gone on to the other world. I, also, remembered the wonderful theme song. Here are some lines from that song:

Thomasina, what are you thinking of?

Thomasina, what makes you so highbrow?

For I do think it very odd, if you are an Egyptian God that the wee little mouse runs in and out his house each time you blink or nod...

Recently, on the spur of the moment, I decided to see it again on DVD, and again, I fell under the movie's enchantment, however, now as an adult, I was able to fully appreciate the film; the fine acting, the chemistry between the actors, the beautiful Scottish setting, the wonderful storyline and of course, Thomasina herself. Thomasina is the narrator of the story. Her comments are humorous because we hear them from the perspective of a cat. Of course, cats being so proud, from Thomasina's point of view, she is the one who adopted the family with whom she lives [not the other way around] and the movie is "all about her!" It's all very humorous and sweet at the same time.

By the way, the movie, also, has a very good underlying message that was a bit ahead of its time back in 1964. All of the characters in the movie are animals rights activists who love their animals and protect them.. The movie makes a very strong humane, anti-cruelty to animals message.

I saw The Three Lives of Thomasina for the first time at age seven and have loved it ever since. Perhaps in today's flashy special effects world this movie is "boring," but it is full of rich characterizations, especially McGoohan's Andrew McDhui, a man hardened not only by the death of his wife, but by being forced into a profession he thought was demeaning. It is a rich psychological portrait of both the man and his daughter, whose realities are mixed after the untimely events surrounding the injury of her cat. Disney changed the modern setting of the original novel and made it a 1912 period piece, which is beautifully set. Karen Dotrice is wonderful as the troubled Mary, and Disney regulars Vincent Winter, Denis Gilmore (both were also in the television movie The Horse Without a Head), and Matthew Garber memorable and often amusing as her friends. Note: please don't judge the film by the saccharine DVD cover with Mary having dressed the cat up in doll clothes. This is a scene that lasts a minute or two; the film is much more than that: about life, death, and love overcoming the latter.