The Cat and the Fiddle

Jeanette MacDonald's first for Metro is a loose adaptation of the hit Kern-Harbach operetta co- starring Ramon Novarro and Frank Morgan, and alas, she's already becoming MGM Jeanette. A smart, suggestive comedienne at Paramount in things like "One Hour With You" and "Love Me Tonight" (to these eyes, the greatest movie musical ever), she really became a household word at Metro, in operettas, usually opposite Nelson Eddy, that increasingly encouraged her diva- hood. Here, as an American pop composer in Brussels, she's already losing her deliciously risqué sense of humor and indulging in great-lady sentimentality. Fun Jeanette isn't entirely gone, though, and she works well with Ramon, who has an attractive tenor and a good deal more acting skill than some of MacDonald's subsequent leading men. The screenplay, by the Spewacks, runs far afield of the Broadway original but makes room for most of the sublime score. And there's also a good glimpse of Vivienne Segal, a legendary Broadway soprano who'd been playing Jeanette-style leads just a few years back, at the dawn of sound. Charles Butterworth--no stranger to Kern, having supported Helen Morgan on Broadway in "Sweet Adeline"--has some funny bits, and there's a pleasing finale in early three-strip Technicolor. Jeanette followed this one up with "The Merry Widow," where, aided by Chevalier and Lubitsch, she was more her old self. Witness this one for some lovely Kern and for Novarro, but watching Jeanette trade comic finesse for prima donna respectability isn't pretty.

Reading the description for this, my expectations were pretty low, due to the silly plot, (and it IS !) but what a fun collection of stars. The Wizard (Frank Morgan), five years before he was the wizard. Jeanette MacDonald, singing. Charles Butterworth is HILARIOUS in this one. Didn't really play a major role, but was there for laughs. He died so young in a questionable car accident. He always looked older in his roles, (make-up ?) but died at 49. Ramon Navarro, who DID make the jump from silents to talkies. A treasure trove of fun stars. The plot... oh that. Navarro is Victor, a composer, trying to get his big break. MacDonald is Shirley, the singer. They get together, but for some reason, can't seem to make it big while they are together. They separate, try to hit it big, and may or may not get back together. Victor is finally putting on his big show, and everything that can go wrong is going wrong. Fun short bit as they scheduled singer seems to be drinking the "mouthwash". The plot is fluff, but totally entertaining, and the "show within a show" is in color. Catch it on Turner Classics!

A European songwriter with classical pretensions meets an American songwriter interested in popular music. He falls madly and impetuously in love with her, while neglecting his private audience before an impresario who could give him his Big Chance. He eventually plays before him, but the older man is more interested in the girl friend. Complications ensue. The girl's song becomes a big hit, and the young man has to make his mark on his own. For a time he seems to have the help of an Older Woman, but she chooses not to ruffle her husband's feathers. A stage performance of his musical is saved by the American's intervention, performing the lead role. He wins the girl's love, after all, despite many disruptions and her last minute spurning of her older benefactor who is by now her official fiancé.

This is a painful movie to watch. Novarro plays a very annoying, very stupid character. How any woman can fall in love with him strains belief. Even a casual moralist might have trouble with the empty headed antics of the major figures. This movie may have been made before the Hays Office censors forced cuts, for the movie makers wanted to be naughty or salacious in the story line.

As for the actors, Ramon Novarro may have been able to sing, but he is not a Nelson Eddy, much less akin to any of Eddy's successors on screen (Allan Jones, Tony Martin, Howard Keel, John Raitt, etc.).

Jeanette Macdonald is wonderful. She has been a favorite of mine since I saw her on stage at Kansas City's Starlight Theater (an outdoor stage in KC's Swope Park), playing the Gertrude Lawrence role in THE KING AND I sometime in the early '50's. The music is really only so-so. "The Night was Made for Love" is the big hit, and it's laughable. Jerome Kern gets the credit for the score, but Cole Porter and Irving Berlin composed better screen music overall.

Silent screen star Ramon Novarro teams up with Jeanette MacDonald in "The Cat and the Fiddle," a 1934 musical film. The film also stars Jean Hersholt, Frank Morgan, and Vivienne Segal.

The story concerns two songwriters, one from a classical background, Victor Florescu (Novarro, and one assumes from that last name, he's from Roumania), and Shirley Sheridan (MacDonald) a young woman from a popular songwriting background who meet. He falls madly in love with her, even turning down a major opportunity with an impresario (Morgan) who turns out to be more interested in Jeanette as a girlfriend.

Eventually Victor wins over Shirley, and the two move in together. Now, I thought the code came in earlier than this, but it appears I'm wrong. I was very surprised when later in the movie, she suggests that they get married because I thought they already were.

Her song becomes a huge hit. Eventually he succumbs to the impresario's pressure to get him out of the picture by breaking up with Shirley. He is convinced that he is holding her back. Victor then gets a big opportunity when a star (Segal) agrees to appear in his operetta. When he refuses to be seduced by her, her husband gives her a choice, the operetta or him, Mr. Money Bags, and she leaves with her husband. Now he's stuck, and he owes money to boot.

This film ran something like one hour and thirty minutes and seemed longer than Battleship Potemkin. This mainly had to do with the casting of Navarro who could just about carry a tune, and when he did, his voice had a tremelo faster than a butterfly's wings.

Jeanette MacDonald, of course, is luminous - beautiful, charming, and in great voice. Navarro did just not have what it took to be her leading man. As stiff as Nelson Eddy was, there was something about the two of them together that had real chemistry. No such thing here.

This is a movie, as someone said here, for Jeanette MacDonald fans only. She's always worth watching, and someone here also mentioned seeing her do King & I. I'm envious.

Between her first film at MGM which was her last with Maurice Chevalier, Merry Widow, and Naughty Marietta which was the debut film of her partnership with Nelson Eddy, Jeanette MacDonald did a film adaption of Jerome Kern's and Otto Harbach's Broadway show The Cat and the Fiddle. She co-starred with Ramon Novarro and while the results were interesting and entertaining there was no demand for more MacDonald/Novarro screen pairings.

The Cat and the Fiddle ran for 365 performances during the 1931-1932 season, something of a miracle for a show to run that long. Most of the score remained intact from the Broadway show. Some big hits for the Kern-Harbach team that came out of that show were She Didn't Say Yes, The Night Was Made for Love, I Like to Watch the Love Parade, and Try to Forget all sung nicely enough by Jeanette and/or Ramon.

While Jeanette's career was on the rise, Ramon was on the downhill slide being propelled like a toboggan by Louis B. Mayer. He was living as openly gay a life as a star could back in the day. Right around this time another gay star William Haines was being given the heave ho by MGM and the Code was on the horizon. Novarro would soon be leaving the USA for Europe and his native Mexico.

The plot concerns two music students in Brussels, American Shirley Sheridan and Victor Florescu presumably Rumanian. Like the usual awkward beginning associated with MacDonald/Eddy movies they are soon at work and in love. However producer/impresario Frank Morgan has designs on Jeanette and Ramon has caught the eye of former diva Vivienne Segal.

This was Vivienne Segal's last film in an otherwise disastrous fling in Hollywood. Making her debut in 1915 she was a leading musical comedy star of Broadway and like a whole lot of Broadway players went to Hollywood when pictures began to talk. She didn't fare well at all in her films and in this last film she's supporting Jeanette. But she sings New Love is Old and Well and being The Cat and the Fiddle is out on at least VHS, it is the only way today's fans can see one of Broadway's leading stars.

Funny how situations can be played for either drama or comedy. A bum check is played for laughs in the Marx Brothers film Room Service. Here in The Cat and the Fiddle the plot calls for Novarro to write a bum check in order to keep his show going for five days after Segal's husband pulls her out of the show. That could have been real serious.

Are you curious as to what happens?