Remember that part of the movie when the cat gets "lost" in . . . something or otherness . . . Anyway, then we hear the cat meow from out of nothingness. Now that was a great scene, although the least realistic thing in the movie (among many).
Just wanted to contribute that. Terrific movie.
Hmm, I just thought it was a stray cat which is known to hang with Dandelo (the one picked by the watchman in the beginning) calling outside the basement....
If you care enough to go around telling people you don't care... you obviously care.
It's been a long time since I saw this version but my take on the cat has always been:
The cat was deconstructed and its atoms were lost and the pattern was never reconstructed.
As others have mentioned, the "me-ow" was just a slightly delayed after effect, a ghost sound from the dead animal-- it's final cries. The time lag may have been a consequence of the botched transmission.
I suppose you could also argue the "trapped in another dimension" theory as well. However, the animal is never heard again, so in theory it didn't survive long wherever it was.
Either way, not pretty.
AE36
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I know what you mean. Yet I would assert that it defies nitpicking, actually working better that way in the film.
See, Andre Delambre (who, by the way, must be the real inventor of the Star Trek transporter, regardless of whatever that crap Enterprise TV show might say hehehe) explains to Helene, and also we, the audience, how the those twin chambers in his laboratory worked in "real" logical and plausible--albeit theoretical--terms.
Well though I saw this some full decades well after 1958, decades after the film broaches this astounding new idea, AND have watched lots and lots of similarly "real" Sci-Fi also for some decades, even though I didn't think it was logical and plausible that the strange, ethereal(?) meowling should've/could've possibly occurred, I still couldn't help but to be creeped out by it anyway. That's why I assert that it literally works better that way, creating a truly frightening effect.
That's what you call "movie magic", an effective Suspension of Disbelief. Of course the trick of successfully achieving such an effect is more than just academics, sometimes.
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And to think that computers used to be about precision! Bah! Precision! Who needs it!
POOR KITTY!
I was also disturbed that after finding out what Andre did, Helene can just laugh and drink champagne.