The Million Dollar Cat (1944)

 

The Million Dollar Cat is the first Tom and Jerry cartoon where Tom has to be polite to Jerry against his wishes (the ones where they team up against a greater evil not included). An eccentric aunt to Mammy has left Tom a whole lot of money, provided he doesn't hurt any living thing, even a mouse. To get his money Tom decides to be nice to Jerry from now on. However Jerry sees this as the perfect opportunity to take advantage of his rival and drives the poor rich cat crazy. Eventually Tom gets fed up and resumes his rivalry with Jerry, trading money for something that will hopefully make him much more happy, trying to kill Jerry.

This is a great cartoon. The gags are funny, the timing is perfect and the ending is very satisfying. It is obvious that William Hanna has reached near perfection with his timing, and Joseph Barbera's story ideas are as sharp as ever when watching this film. Through out the whole picture the characters feel so real and relatable. Like many of the best Tom and Jerry cartoons, the very idea these characters are just drawings seems absurd. Also helping provide this film with great energy is a very enjoyable high energy music score by Scott Bradley. This is fast and really fun big band music. There is though a brief instance where the music seems at odds with what is happening on screen. This is when Tom and Jerry read the letter. The high energy music does not match the characters (and audience) reading a piece of paper. However this is really brief and the music matches the rest of the cartoon very well. All and all a delightful cartoon with a whole lot of energy.

This cartoon featured the team that had by this time firmly become Bill and Joe's regular group of animators, Irv Spence, Ken Muse, Pete Burness and Ray Patterson. The great final line was vocally delivered by William Hanna himself.

MGM seemed to have the ugliest movie posters to accompany their short subjects (both animated and live action). This film however happens to have one of the worst as you can see below. The poster's artwork was most likely done by Bela Reiger, who did the artwork for almost all the terrible MGM short subject posters.


By the way this is one of the few Tom and Jerry cartoons, that when it is shown on Boomerang or Cartoon Network, does not have the smoking scenes cut out.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/which-is-the-ugliest-mgm-cartoon-poster-nsfw/