Mousey (1974 TV Movie) User Reviews (8)

Kirk Douglas cast against type in a mystery

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 5 October 2023]

This is an excellent little remembered made-for-TV thriller featuring Kirk Douglas as a biology professor (nicknamed "Mousey," much to his resentment, because of his quiet and shy manner) who quits his job and goes looking for his former wife who has moved to Montreal with her son from a previous marriage. He wants the boy (whom he regards as his own) back but he has been blocked from doing so by a court order.

Now, without work, without a family, obsessed with a son he has been told he can't go near, he decides to have his vengeance on his wife and the world - with a scalpel in his hand. Douglas is a marvel as the professor, alternately pathetic and creepy, as he follows his wife (played by Jean Seberg) around the city. He is, in turn, being followed by a private eye, hired by his former's wife's fiancee (John Vernon) to be sure they know where he is. The cat and mouse games that Douglas will play will not only be with the wife but with that detective, as well. And along the way, meeting "Mousey" in a laundromat one night, a lonely young woman will make the mistake of taking this man home with her.

Shot in England as well as on location in Canada, Cat and Mouse effectively builds its suspense towards the inevitable clash. And then, at the climax, there is a twist I didn't see coming. Film buffs will appreciate the presence in the film of Bessie Love (The Lost World, Broadway Melody) playing Vernon's mother. However, it's the bravura performance of Douglas that will remain in the memory. I'd actually rate this one a 7.5 rather than just a 7/10.

Douglas is mousey!

[malcolmgsw · 3/10 · 5 January 2020]

Now whatever you might say about Kirk Douglas you could never ever call him mousey.So playing against type doesn't work. Nothing happens for 40 minutes then he murders a complete stranger.Presumably to show us that he is going crazy.He then kills a private eye who is trailing him.The film then starts to ramp up the suspense with Douglas stalking Seberg in her own house,only for the film to give us a total letdown in the climax. A really poor film overall

Truly lousy film

[thomas196x2000 · 1/10 · 23 December 2023]

I see some 7 and 8 ratings on this film. Laughable.

Douglas plays against type as a professor who really is mousey, hence an appropriately applied nickname. He is upset that his wife broke up with him. And about being teased when he was a kid 40 years ago!

I saw this when it first came out as a kid, and felt slightly nauseated with it, and just re-watched it recently.

It is not a horror movie, or a particularly good character study. You are treated to 90 minutes of a weirdo upset at the world, sobbing, then angry.

The worst moment is a lonely, nice woman sweetly attends to a wound on him, and for no reason he just slashes her throat. We are treated to some extended moments that she tried to get away while bleeding heavily, only to fall over while realistically crying as she realizes she is dying. All she was doing was trying to help him.

The entire movie is underlit, cold, dark and depressing. Not one of the characters is interesting. In the end, he tries to kiss his shocked ex-wife as the police close in, and the last shot he is just a pile of wrinkled clothes on the floor sobbing. So the audience is deprived of any climax, or any small joy of seeing justice served.

Exceptional

[Oliver_Lenhardt · 8/10 · 5 May 2002]

Disregard the relatively low score and negative comments. MOUSEY is one of the best made-for-TV suspense/horror films of the '70s, and that's saying something.

The film is taut from beginning to end....the sort of sustained low-key tension that keeps you on edge and engrossed, but rarely provides jump-out-of-your-seat moments. The alternate title, CAT AND MOUSE, is more apposite, for that's the game Kirk Douglas's character is playing throughout. How he outwits his ex-wife, her new husband, and their crew of private investigators is wonderfully entertaining.

Douglas's performance is a well-judged balance of pathos, dementia, and understandable spite, that ably evokes sympathy from the viewer. The remainder of the cast is not particularly noteworthy, but the other actors aren't given much to do anyway. It's Douglas's show.

The film's only other liability (minor as it is), aside from the odd snippet of painfully trite expository dialogue, is the music score. It isn't awful, but it doesn't do much to accentuate the suspense at key moments, and the same melancholy theme is repeated a little too often. Director Daniel Petrie's craftsmanship, however, is flawless and understated.

The thrilling conclusion of MOUSEY, a sequence of events that uncannily recalls the memorable, allegedly precedent-setting "call-tracing" scene from the estimable BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974), actually predates its more famous cousin: "Mousey" was broadcast on TV just weeks before "Black Christmas" started filming. Coincidence?

What is it all about?

[jaybabb · 3 February 2003]

That is indeed the question. This movie has a lot of questions, but -provide few answers.

For instance: Why is Kirk Douglas taking revenge on his ex wife? Is it because she divorced him? Because she is giving her son her new husband's name instead of his? Or is it something else?

We get no answers to these questions. Maybe he is blaming his ex for being called "Mousey?" Who knows!

Here is the bottom line: Kirk Douglas is engaging the people involved in a game of cat & mouse and we are not told why.

This is no way to make a movie, even for TV. If they are going to make movies-don't ask questions and then not provide answers. There are far worse movies than this, but at least most of them provide answers as to why the characters do what they do.

Murder porn made for TV in the States.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 29 November 2020]

"Mousy" (also known as "Cat and Mouse") is a made for television movie that was, according to IMDB, shown as a theatrical release overseas. It stars Kirk Douglas and Jean Seberg and John Vernon co-star in the film.

When the film begins, George Anderson (Douglas) is in a foul mood and walks off his job as a school teacher. Apparently, his wife left him for another man and he's sick of being seen as a meek man....hence the students' calling him 'Mousey'. He spends the rest of the movie working out a twisted revenge against her, though much of it is directed against innocent folks, as he travels to Montreal where his ex- lives and begins a reign of terror.

While in some ways the film is an interesting character study by Douglas and the filmmakers, it borders on being 'murder porn'....a movie that seems to get off showing a vile human being killing for kicks. And, unlike Freddy Kruger or Jason, this is realistic. I also worry that some sicko might watch the film and enjoy it or take their queue from it. Overall, a disturbing and somewhat offensive movie...one I cannot believe they actually made for television. Not for the squeamish!

Nothing special.

[gridoon · 15 October 2000]

Don't expect to get much pleasure out of watching this one-note, slow-moving made-for-TV thriller. It's just too thinly plotted for a feature-length film, and despite its cinematic look and Kirk Douglas' convincing performance, it has only a handful of mildly tense moments. (**)

Just terribly unpleasant. Call an exterminator.

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 19 April 2022]

Usually films about psychopathic killers have a point or motive but this one has neitger, just an insane, vindictive crazed teacher played by Kirk Douglas who added the blue pills a gun woman who is being kind to him at random in a violent and abhorrent manner. The plot of the film as described makes it appear that Douglas is in the right for seeking revenge on ex-wife Jean Seberg for divorcing him and taking away her son so he can't see him. What is not mentioned is that Douglas and seberg have a marriage of convenience. She was pregnant with another man's child and he married her husband to stay here with her so her son would have a name. But after while, they would divorce amicably, which obviously has not happened.

She is now going to marry John Vernon (now that's a catch!), and Douglas leaves his job in a huff, stalks them to the church where they are going to be married, kills the girl, kills the detective on his Trail and then finally goes to the house where Vernon's mother, veteran actress Bessie Love, is looking after the kid. Douglas makes his move, and I made mine to the fast-forward button. Given the nickname "Mousey" because of his passive nature, Douglas has little personality and thus even less of a great role to play. This is just another attack on shy people for possibly hiding a psychopathic nature which is a bad precedent and weak motivation. In fact, the three leading actors are very Bland in their roles. I also didn't see a point in making a film like this because as a TV movie, there is little to be entertained or educated or enlightened by it. The film is vile in almost every way. Douglas made many bad movies in the 1970's, and this is by far the worst.