Always Good for an Arf

The Man Who Wagged His Tail (Continental). Once upon a time in Brooklyn there was a mean old slumlord (Peter Ustinov). Golly, was he mean. He raised the rent on any pretext, lowered the boom at the first late payment, embezzled the savings of his ignorant tenants, and screamed at them just to stay in abad humor. When beggars knocked at his door, he screwed up his face till he looked like a huge, ferocious dog, and snarled and barked to frighten them away.

One day the old meanie met his match: a nutty little old lady who came around selling fairy stories. When he barked, she cackled crazily and said: "I know it's you, you nasty man. May you bark till you find somebody who loves you." The villain smirked disdainfully and went right on barking, but in a minute--yipe! The slumlord physically became the cur he essentially was.

At that point, this Spanish-speaking, English-titled comedy, which for two reels seems no more than a mildly amusing attempt to raise some Dickens, suddenly turns into a minor screwball sensation. As a dog, the cur at one stroke loses all his human rights--and properties. Without money, without clothes, without shelter, without food, he begins to live the dog's life he deserves. As he wanders the streets, dogs yap at him, boys kick at him, motorists use him for target practice. A bum sells him to a sausage factory for $2.

By day's end, the tenement tyrant is so happy to find a friendly little boy (Pablito Calvo) that he doesn't even mind chasing sticks and wagging his tail--anything for a little human kindness. By film's end, the cur sees himself for what he is, and having learned humility is restored to humanity. Funny thing, though, how the dogs of the neighborhood keep running up to him and sniffing around...

The humor of this waggish tale depends principally on one fact: the slight but definite resemblance between Ustinov and his canine counterpart, portrayed by a swaybacked, dewlapidated Italian stage dog called Caligola. The spectator is continually reminded that inside the dog there is the villain, and the recurrent after-image of Ustinov doing all those doggy things is unfailingly good for an arf. Actor Ustinov, held in leash by Director Ladislao (Marcelino) Vajda, does pretty well for a mere human being, but of course he is not nearly so funny as Caligola. The dog wags Vajda's Tail.

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