At a small town, the mayor hires a dog catcher and instructs him to collect and impound every dog in town, regardless of them having an owner. That mayor is a henpecked husband who is forced by his wife to share the conjugal bed with the family dog. At first the dog catcher does not carry out his assignment successfully, because the dog owners protest. He gets other transport assignments for a while. One day he meets the daughter of a small farmer and, after a short courting time, proposes marriage to her. But marriage requires money, which he does not have; that forces him to agree to an even gruesomer task than his initial one. Will he go through with it?
This is structured as an allegory, but ends in a conventionally comic fashion. There is an identification between the man in charge of the atrocities and his would-be victims; in other words, he has a canine personality. The motivation for the mayor's anti-dog crusade is left vague: it is supposed to be a ruse intended as a justification for the capture of his wife's dog; but perhaps it is also an outlet for his universal hatred of dogs. In one of the musical numbers, starring the leading actor as singer, there is a curious scene which would probably raise a riot if made today: two black women stand cheek-to-cheek with him while he is not paying attention to them. He initially displays pleasure with their contact, but after he looks at them he displays repulse, then pushes them away and pulls two other women, both white, towards him.
Rating: 35
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