Too much of everything

Disturbing yet enthralling

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Three things make this Tom&Jerry cartoon stand out from the crowd:We see more of Mammy Two-Shoes than ever, not just her face but also a bit of her social life.It is one of the relatively few cartoons where Jerry doesn't get a total triumph at the end.It is filled with good 50's jazz music.And it is even more. Tom has a whole gang of friends, and the cat(s)-vs-mouse chase, although basically the same as usual, is filled with gags around musical instruments. Jerry is even reshaping into the musical instruments he hear.Finally, it is one where censorship has done most work, with two revisions, first replacing Mammy Two-Shoes voice with a smoother, bland voice, and then redrawing a lot of it to replace her with a skinny white girl. And every change made it worse (except possibly replacing cards by dancing). I find it hard to see how Mammy Two-Shoes could be severely racist where she is clearly the master of her house, not always obvious in other cartoons, and replacing an overweight middle-aged black woman with an almost anorectic white girl is hardly a step forward, limiting both age, weight and skin color to something considered "right". Is it a good move to remove strong, independent black women from the screen? I know the voice is cliché but nothing more, and many new movies are worse (the new Ladykillers, the Rush Hour series...). If Chris Tucker can make fun of "black language" why can't Mammy Two-Shoes?So it has all the action and gags of an above average cartoon, but with these unique features on top. Not mind-blowing unique but quite significant.

Anyone who loves some "swinging' jazz," will lose this cartoon.The maid is stepping out for a hot night on the town. I least I got that impression with the colorful dress, garter belt and the rest. I laughed when she tested her necklace, the one with green and red jewels. She hit the green and the word "go" lit up, red for "stop!"The moment she's out door, Tom rushes to the window, whistles to his buddies out near the garbage can and holds up a sign that reads, "O.K. For the Party." They yell "yippee" and literally fly through the window. In no time, the place is jumping. The hot jazz music in here, by the way, is fantastic! These cats know how to party!Unfortunately, the music is keeping the mouse awake and little Jerry turns out to be party pooper. The rest of the cartoon involves his attempts at silencing the music and the cats silencing him! There are excellent sight gags in this one....and some justice at the very end.

Tom's owner is going out to play cards with some friends. Tom takes advantage of this by inviting some friends to come over and they spend all their time making a racket listening to Jazz records and playing along with the music. The sound is driving Jerry crazy, so he decides to fight back. A few times Jerry gets the better of these four cats, but in the end he is tied to the blinds and is helpless--until he phones the owner and tells her what's afoot. Oddly, Jerry can apparently speak in this episode but although the lady hears it, the audience cannot. She returns home to find the partying cats and throws them out--only to herself turn on loud music and Jerry isn't much better off than with the cats.This cartoon features excellent animation, the usual Tom and Jerry violence and good production values. A decent but not super-outstanding cartoon--but considering it's vintage Tom and Jerry, it's still well worth seeing.

* This has a spoiler of sorts, but not about the cartoon's storyline *One Saturday night, the black maid decides to go and play bridge at a club, leaving Tom alone. Tom then invites three cat friends (including the black cat, Butch) into the house for a party with loud music, which disturbs Jerry. Jerry then tries to get rid of the feline fiends!This is a funny cartoon, and has a bit of a twist at the end!There have been two versions of this that I have seen: the original one with the black maid intact, and the other where she was replaced by a white woman (who also had the same drawl as the original maid, and did some completely different actions at the beginning and at the bridge club in which the sound effects and dialogue made no sense) -- naturally the former is superior, especially as later on in the other version the sound effects go out of synch with the actions on the screen. NOTE: If you see this on video or DVD, there is one point where you can see the maid's face if you use Pause! (Normally you can only see her from the chest down)