Monday, April 1, 2024

The Hollywood Bowl (1950)

 



In the vein of The Cat Concerto (1947) before it, this film once again features Tom trying to put on a concert and Jerry wanting to be a part of it. Tom has a big concert at the Hollywood Bowl as the conductor. Jerry wants to conduct alongside Tom, but Tom does not take to kindly to this. Tom tries his best to get Jerry out of his way, but the mouse proves to be incredibly stubborn. 

This is a delightful cartoon. While it may be similar to The Cat Concerto, it never copies the previous cartoon, not even to use one of the same gags. While this may not be the funniest Tom and Jerry short, the humor is still a lot of fun. The gags here mostly make one smile rather than laugh out loud but there is no problem with that. The one exception to that though is the climactic scene where members of Tom's orchestra start disappearing. The climax is truly hilarious. The character animation here is simply wonderful. Once again these characters come to life in a way even most live action movie characters don't. This is a completely dialogue less short but just from how they move and their facial expressions, we know everything about who these characters are and what they are thinking. The scenes with both of them conducting are character animation at its best. 

IMDB's trivia section states, "One of the very few times composer Scott Bradley used the full MGM Orchestra for the soundtrack, since the subject demanded it. He typically scored the MGM cartoons for a 20-piece ensemble, claiming 'You don't need more than 20 players for cartoon music.'" While it is important not to take anything IMDB says as absolute fact, this film definitely a larger and more orchestral score than the average Tom and Jerry cartoon. All the music Scott Bradley did for the Tom and Jerry films was fantastic but this short truly is a standout in this respect. The music here (including some great classical pieces) is simply wonderful. 

The credited animators on this cartoon are Kenneth Muse, Ed Barge, Ray Patterson and Irven Spence. 
In the original release of this cartoon the opening titles were superimposed over a starry blue sky. However in the reissue the opening titles were over a simple blue background. Most TV airings of this film feature the reissue opening. 


Original 


Reissue

Below is the movie poster for this film. While not perfect, it is a great deal better than most of the MGM cartoon posters of this time. 









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