Hisaya Morishige argues with his wife, Isuzu Yamada, over his cat, so he divorces her and marries vivacious young Kyôko Kagawa, who also objects to his cat. He wants a simple life, and people are too complicated. When he discovers Miss Kagawa has given the cat away with his mother's permission, he runs away from home.
Shirô Toyoda's movie is one of his rare comedies, it says here, but I didn't find it particularly amusing. One issue is its length, almost 140 minutes, another is the rather lugubrious sense of humor that the Japanese seem to have, and a third is the insistence on a story that is inherently tragic, one about a man who cannot sustain an adult relationship with his wives, nor his disappointed mother. The author of the novel this is based on, Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, had a reputation for dealing with issues of sexual identity, and the film makes that point about Morishige.
In the end, it reminded me of the observation that HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS starts out with the Grinch wanting to live with his dog far from people. As a dog owner, I sympathize. People are, alas, complicated, while animals are simple, even if we often anthropomorphize their motivations. I don't think this is a comedy at all, but a story about a man who gives up on people when he recognizes them for what they are. His fixation on his cat is a descent into madness. Not funny at all.
