The Three Lives of Thomasina is a 1963 British-American Disney live-action movie directed by Don Chaffey, about a cat and her influence on a family.
Inveranoch, Scotland, 1912: A young girl named Mary MacDhui (Karen Dotrice) is devastated when her beloved cat, Thomasina, apparently dies at the hands of her widowed veterinarian father Andrew (Patrick McGoohan). The strained relationship between the girl and her father is eventually repaired with the return of Thomasina and the aid of Lori MacGregor (Susan Hampshire), a beautiful and mysterious "witch" who seems to have powers to revive and heal animals.
Based on the 1957 novel Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God by Paul Gallico, the film is a surprisingly faithful adaptation, partly because Gallico wrote the screenplay and remained on set as a "special guest".
This movie provides examples of:
- A Boy and His X: Mary and her cat Thomasina are very close, leaving the little girl inconsolable after Thomasina's death.
- Catch Your Death of Cold: Mary catches pneumonia after chasing the amnesiac Thomasina through a rainstorm in the middle of the night. She nearly dies, having lost the will to live, but when Thomasina finally comes back to her, she recovers.
- Cats Have Nine Lives: The title evokes this old wives' tale, although Thomasina herself only "dies" once. Her "first" life is her life with Mary before her Near-Death Experience, her "second" life is her amnesiac period after she revives, and her "third" life is her life after returning to the MacDhuis and after Andrew and Lori's marriage in the end.
- Childish Bangs: Mary's hairstyle supplies the page image.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Dr. Andrew MacDhui lost his compassion for other people, as well as his belief in God, due to his wife's death.
- Dr. Jerk: Andrew MacDhui is a jerk veterinarian at the start of the story, putting animals to sleep without even trying to save them first unless a sizable crowd is watching him.
- Emotions Versus Stoicism: Andrew is very much at odds with the village not only because he comes from the city, but because his approach to animal welfare and human interactions contrasts with theirs. He looks at everything from a realist stance, which makes him efficient at his job at the cost of him refusing to see the emotional value of the beings he treats and unfortunately, his daughter. Meanwhile, the village is very close knit and treat both farm and house animals as treasured beings; so when Andrew takes a pragmatic approach to healthcare (euthanizing Mrs. MacKenzie's dog of fifteen years, taking a diseased cow and putting it down along with the other cows it was in contact with), they all see him as nothing but an impersonal murderer.
- Everything's Louder with Bagpipes: The children try to console Mary by giving Thomasina a heroic funeral with mournersnote and an honor guard, including little Jamie McNabb playing "MacIntosh's Lament" (with only nine mistakes)note on pibroch. The town constable even stops traffic for the procession and salutes as the bier passes. It's Jamie's piping that begins to wake the cat from her coma, brings Lori out to see what's going on and saves Thomasina from being buried alivenote .
- The Film of the Book: Based on the 1957 novel Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God by Paul Gallico. Gallico adapted the screenplay for the film himself and remained on set at all times.note
- Friend to All Living Things: "Mad Lori" the witch, with her healing powers.
- Ghost Amnesia: A variant with a character Back from the Dead. After Thomasina revives from her Near-Death Experience, she has no memory of her previous life or her owner Mary. She gets her memories back near the end, though.
- Gossip Evolution: Mr. MacDhui's reputation in the town takes a nosedive after the boys form an "anti-MacDhui society" and rumors start to spread that he hates animals and never tries to help them. It even got to the point that Jamie and Hughie tell the townsfolk that Andrew shot Thomasina dead himself.
- Innocent Inaccurate: Geordie is a fountain of this. He's even younger than the other children, and subsequently is the one most likely to overhear the adults (since the other children manipulate him into eavesdropping for them). What he hears is filtered through his child's perspective, leading him to conclusions like, "The witch cast a spell on Mr. MacDhui so he'd help her care for the badger." (Of course, given MacDhui's reputation for ruthlessness, Geordie could think it would take a spell to get him to do such a thing.)
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Extremely downplayed with Hughie Stirling. He's bossy and a bit of a Big Brother Bully, but he also comes up with the idea to have a funeral for Thomasina because he genuinely wants to make Mary feel better, and he gives the eulogy himself.
- Andrew MacDhui is a coldly pragmatic Dr. Jerk through much of the movie, but he he has a Freudian Excuse in that his dreams of being a "real" doctor were thwarted by his own stern father and later he lost his beloved wife, and he truly loves his daughter, though his Lack of Empathy hurts her. Ultimately he softens and finds Second Love with Lori.
- Jerkass Realization: For most of the movie, Dr. MacDhui genuinely cannot understand why his daughter would be upset that her pet was euthanized by him. It's not until Mary gets pneumonia that he realizes how much he's hurt her.
- Lazily Gender-Flipped Name: Explanation for the titular cat's name. The family pet was originally called Thomas, and they added the feminine suffix -ina when they realized she's a she. It's hilarious that this mix-up occurred with a cat who lived in a veterinarian's home.Thomasina: They started out by calling me Thomas, but when they, um, got to know me better, they changed it to Thomasina.
- Missing Mom: Mary's mother died in an epidemic, when she tended the sick and caught the disease herself. Her death is the reason why Andrew lost his faith in God and became such a stern pragmatist.
- Mother Nature, Father Science: Lori and Andrew's approaches to animal healing, respectively. Andrew is a professionally trained veterinarian, relies on the latest medical knowledge and know-how to treat most animals, and when a solution isn't found he'll euthanize the affected. Meanwhile, Lori isn't trained at all, but she's treated all of the wild animals near her home and all of them made strong recoveries just by her nurturing and letting nature do the healing for her.
- Near-Death Experience: After Thomasina is seriously injured and Andrew euthanizes her, she finds herself in a cat heaven resembling an Egyptian temple, where hundreds of cats surround the Egyptian cat-goddess Bast. Just as she gazes into the goddess's eyes, she returns to her body on earth.
- Pet the Dog: Despite his reputation, Andrew is not quite a heartless vet. He ensures old Mrs. MacKenzie that her beloved dog will be euthanized painlessly and doesn't even charge her for it, spends a whole day treating Bruce's seeing eye dog successfully, and does take the time to properly treat the badger left at Lori's house despite his concerns with it being rabid.
- Pet Dress-Up: The title character (a cat) is dressed up by her owner, a girl called Mary, in an early scene. This comes back in the finale, as Mary once again dresses up Thomasina for her father and Lori's wedding.
- Poor Communication Kills: When talking to Lori, Andrew only refers to Thomasina as "a pet" without saying her name or that she was a cat. Lori has no reason to connect Andrew to the cat she found and healed. Therefore neither of them realize that Mary's "dead" cat has been living with Lori this entire time until the climax, when Lori calls Thomasina by name.
- P.O.V. Boy, Poster Girl: Thomasina is the frontmost character on the movie poster and the one who the book and movie is named after, but she isn't quite the main character of the narrative. Andrew, Lori, the boys, and Mary are the real stars, while Thomasina (in the movie, at least) only has occasional moments of focus.
- The Power of Love: This is what ultimately saves Thomasina, as well as both Andrew and Mary.
- Roguish Romani: In the latter half of the film, a Romani circus comes near the village. Contrast to Andrew's cold pragmatism in animal treatment and Lori's nurturing nature, ringleader Targu and his employees all treat their animals cruelly—their bear has a bad foot, their horses are overworked, and by the time Lori comes to see the animals all their dogs are whining and pleading to be let out. They don't treat the locals any better, with some young performers wrestling Georgie and his friends while they and the women all whip and taunt Lori for being a "witch" and trying to free their animals.
- Second Love: Lori, for Andrew. They are married by the end of the film. It's implied that Lori lost her husband or lover early in life as well, perhaps in war.
- Setting Update: The source novel was written and set in the 1950s, but the movie takes place in 1912.
- Shown Their Work: Gallico knew his Egyptian mythology. In the second part of the book Thomasina believes she is Sekhmet-Bast-Ra, a reincarnated cat goddess. (All you see of this in the film is the Cat Heaven scene.) As she observes the humans and their actions, she believes she is controlling their destiny (and who's to say she is not? The Egyptians did believe that cats were capable of redirecting human destiny and even controlling the movements of the moon. Gallico clearly knew this. There's a touch of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane throughout this entire sequence). When Andrew falls to his knees and cries out to God for forgiveness, he doesn't know that Sekhmet-Bast-Ra is up in the tree directly over his head and thinks he is addressing her. Perhaps he is.
- Silent Treatment: Mary stops speaking to her father after the death of Thomasina. She refuses to acknowledge he's even there, and confesses to the minister that she's murdered him. In the book, her silence increases over time, until she's not speaking at all, becoming an Elective Mute, willing to die herself.
- Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Dr. MacDhui's entire worldview before meeting Lori.
- Sliding Scale of Animal Communication: Between Levels 3 and 4. Thomasina is a normal, non-speaking cat, but the film is narrated from her first-person perspective in voiceover.
- Your Tomcat Is Pregnant: A non-pregnancy variation of this is the reason for the titular cat's name. She was originally called Thomas because they thought the cat was a tom-cat — until they "got to know [her] better."note
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Andrew. He never wanted to be a veterinarian (he wanted to be a doctor), but his father was a vet and apparently didn't give him much choice in the matter.
- Widow's Weeds: Mary wears black clothes to the funeral. In the book, she continues to wear mourning, draping her shawl over her head.
