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Days before his large collection of indigenous art goes public the wealthy antique dealer Tony Webb fears that he is marked for death - as the ultimate price for his legendary, nearly unnatural luck. Or is the danger more wordly? Tony Webb is not a likeable person and his outcast half-brother Paul also has no warm feeling for him. The C. A. T., a former circus performer, master jewel thieves and now a professional bodyguard, will try to find out... In the sixties, T. H. E. Cat (set in New York) was among the first series, that featured a darker hero, "a cool intelligent fearless man of action, and a jazz soundtrack to highlight the noir-like visual look of such a man's world." (Michael Shonk). It stars the great Robert Loggia and lasted only one season, but it seems to have had some influence upon future series and films. Unfortunately the negatives of "T. H. E. Cat" were apparently accidentally destroyed in an accident in the Paramount storage in the '70's, therefor only a few prints of poor quality are momentarily available. The episode "Ring of Anasis" (December 30, 1966 - available online) is also worthy, because it was the last directing job for legendry filmmaker Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, Out of the past). It was an interesting, stylish exit for him. Tourneur, who was according to his own words not a great fan of television, had apparently a great time creating an atmosphere of doom and mystic in Webb's nightly, labyrinthine exhibition rooms, where suddenly blowpips and javelins becomes weapons of choice.

Newly hired from the notorious, but successful Columbia Short department in 1939 Keaton decided to open his score with a rework of his failed UK feature THE INVADER, a film with some interesting moment, but very overlong and with no proper ending. For PEST FROM THE WEST cutting down the story to 20 min did a good thing, also the film benefits from some nice setting, reused from Columbia features. The beginning is a bit shaky, the falling-of–the-boat gag is a bit overworked, but even this is saved by a single great line. The second part then is beautiful constructed, beginning with Keaton starts singing "In a little Spanish town" armed with a ukulele and ending this song after a wild chase, this time a stolen guitar in hands. It is not exactly 100% Keaton, but it is still very funny. Keaton hated most of his films he did for Columbia and it is clear why. The fast and often careless way of making these films didn't mix with his attitude towards comedies. But for this time he could pick the story and rework this with the talented director Del Lord, so the result was much better then expected. This didn't seem to be the case for most of the remaining nine other shorts he made for Columbia between 1939 and 1941, but they all became quite a box office hit. It is a bit ironic, but for Keaton, who was basically blacklisted as a performer in Hollywood before that, this success reopen doors for him a little. His part in the A-feature Hollywood CAVALCARD was apparently a direct result of that and (slowly but anyway) the things starts to get better for Keaton. P.S. Columbia tries to lure Keaton back in 1942, but he resisted. Enough was enough.

After spending years in the MGM factory and nearly losing his mind, Keaton pulled himself together in 1935. At that time he worked for Educational, a low budget company that had seen much better days. The 16 films Keaton did for Educational between 1934-37 are nevertheless viewed today which respect. Despite meager budgets and often not very original scripts they still show that here Keaton was given some creative control (compare to the most films he later did for Columbia) and was still able to create great gags. But only in a few films he could work with an own script. GRAND SLAM OPERA was one of the few. It is a Keaton Film from start to finish, with a clever story, fast pace and some good support by Harold Goodwin and especially John Ince (good supporting actors are quite rare in low budget comedies). The "Hotel room dancing" and the juggle performance in front of a micro are classic scenes. Not surprisingly GRAND SLAM OPERA is now regarded as (almost) equal to the quality of his silent films. Others, like PEST FROM THE WEST were very funny, but GRAND SLAM OPERA provided the special "Keaton-Touch" that was nearly destroyed by MGM.