Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
is neutral about it.
An amiable operetta, The Cat and the Fiddle would probably have been better had it been filmed at Paramount under the direction of
Ernst Lubitsch, whose style would have fit it perfectly. Instead, at MGM and under the guidance of
William Howard,
Cat became an enjoyable but not especially memorable musical, even with
Jeanette MacDonald making her MGM starring debut. MacDonald is grand, in superb voice and fine acting fettle. She hasn't yet settled into her prima diva mode, and so there's a freshness and allure to her performance that is hard to resist. As her true love,
Ramon Novarro gives an engaging performance, even if he can't compete with MacDonald in the vocal department. Novarro's voice is fine, much better than many other musical stars of the period, but his high notes are less than secure, and the strain particularly shows when dueting with MacDonald. There's also fine diva support from
Vivienne Segal, an amusing comic turn from
Charles Butterworth, and a very nice contribution from
Frank Morgan, convincingly cast as Novarro's rival. The
Jerome Kern music is pure gossamer, even if the Otto Harbach lyrics fitted to it are occasionally hard to take. The script, unfortunately, is more on the level of the lyrics than of the music, with a hackneyed plot that will cause hoots among younger viewers. At least it has some pre-Code naughtiness to enliven things. The Technicolor finale benefits from using three-strip rather than two-strip color, but it still gives the actors' skin tones an unearthly hue.
Cat is so classic movie musical, but the cast and score make it worth catching, especially for students of the genre. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide