A "revealing mistake" says,
When Joey leaves the basement after assaulting the police officer, he walks out of the shot, then a cat is obviously thrown into the frame.
I replayed that scene on the DVD of Pickup..., and it's hilarious!
The cat enters the frame at such speed that it looks like is was shot from a cannon. Fuller was a slam-bang director and didn't care if the cat's entry wasn't "cat like"
...yeah, it is hard to give stage directions to a cat.
On November 6, 2012...God blessed America
I've been watching a lot of silent movies lately, and there are a LOT of adult cats appearing in them.
True that herding cats isn't a possibility, but maybe the earlier directors just gave the animals enough time to do their thing until the director got exactly what he wanted on film.
Yeah...and no ASPCA on set to complain, "you can't push that cat! That's cruel!"
On November 6, 2012...God blessed America
I thought that represented the cat getting caught underfoot and Joey kicking it backwards into the room.
shareThe cat scene is outside the building, If I remember it.
E pluribus unum
That's a possible explanation, but we don't see it.
In an overhead shot we see him exiting to the left then a full second later the cat is thrown into the shot from the same location. To add to the comedy, after being catapulted, the cat immediately starts eating something on the concrete. Maybe they put cat food there.