Being a fan of Harold Lloyd since the days of the BBC2 shows in the seventies I was looking forward to this talking feature of his from 1934. A lot of silent comedians had trouble when making the switch to sound (to be fair this was down to the new 'technology' as much as anything) but Lloyd seemed to make the transition quite well. The Cat's Paw is an easy watching film that neither bores nor excites. Harold plays a missionary's son who is sent back to his hometown in the states, for the 1st time since childhood, to find a wife so he can take over the running of the missionary. He ends up being a stooge in an election (the cat's paw of the title) put against the corrupt mayor to supposedly ensure an easy victory. Of course, Harold wins and goes about cleaning up the town and finds a wife in the process. The film takes a long time to wake up and it isn't until Harold's election victory that the film really starts. Unfortunately throughout the whole film, Harold the slapstick ace never appears regardless of how much you hope for it and you have to settle for Harold the reasonable character comedian, an unfortunate use of his talents that was to blight most of his talkies. The scene in the nightclub when the singer/stripper/gangster's moll tries to discredit him (and does the opposite) is very interesting as it's quite risqué. It must have have been a pre-coder, and possibly one of the last. All in all this is an average movie, enjoyable but well below Lloyd's capabilities.
Review of The Cat's-Paw
