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Three Little Kittens

193810 min 32 sec89 shots

A mother cat raises three kittens on a farm, feeding them and carrying them to a sunny place when a hen disturbs their nest. The film explains that newborn kittens have closed eyes, then shows their eyes open at two weeks and their change from their mother’s milk to cow’s milk at five weeks. As the kittens grow, they play with yarn, wrestle, learn to wash themselves, follow their mother, and climb an apple tree.

Farmyard encounters teach the kittens to protect themselves: they bristle at a dog, one swats the dog’s nose, and all retreat up the tree. When they are considered old enough to “work,” the farmer’s wife takes two kittens to the village, where a shoemaker and a postmaster expect them to catch mice. The third kitten remains on the farm and is described at the end as the luckiest of the three.

Provenance and rights

Original producer: ERPI Classroom Films, Inc.
Collection: Prelinger Archives
Original title: Three Little Kittens
Date: 1938
Original link: Open on Internet Archive
Rights: public_domain