Cat Concerto

The Cat Concerto has the distinction of being a cartoon that won an Academy Award before almost anyone saw it.

Its official release date was April 26, 1947, but the cartoon must have had a special screening some time in 1946 to be eligible. I have not been able to find out where or when. Showman’s Trade Review on January 4 reported “Fred Quimby, head of MGM’s short subject department, has selected ‘The Cat Concerto,’ a Tom & Jerry cartoon, as his entry for the Academy Award for 1946.”

The Motion Picture Academy’s Jean Herscholt announced on January 26 the cartoon had been nominated for an Oscar. It won on March 13.

Even before the nomination, the Motion Picture Herald obliquely referred to the screening, writing on January 25 “Due to the favorable reception accorded MGM’s Technicolor cartoon, ‘The Cat Concerto,’ Fred C. Quimby, head of the studio’s short subjects department, plans to produce a series of similar cartoons featuring well known musical compositions. The musical score for the second in the series will be based on Johann Strauss’ ‘Tales of the Vienna Woods’.” This was likely another PR puff piece by Metro announcing cartoons that never got made, but Hanna and Barbera did use the same idea later, creating Johann Mouse, released in 1951.

The Cat Concerto was not copyrighted until April 10, 1947.

The short seems to have been in the planning stages for some time. Variety reported on January 2, 1946:

Jose Iturbi is virtually a stand-in for a tomcat these days. No offense—his finger movements are being copied for transfer to the tomcat who plays the Second Hungarian Rhapsody in Metro's "Tom and Jerry" cartoon.

Iturbi appeared in the MGM feature Anchor’s Away but not in the same scenes as Tom and Jerry. That didn’t stop MGM’s PR people from sending newspapers photos of Iturbi watching Tom and Jerry at the piano.

Variety printed this blurb on March 27: “John Crown recorded 88 work on the 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody yesterday at Metro for ‘Cat's Concerto’.”

Crown was a professor of piano forte at University of Southern California. An earlier posting on this blog mentions that MGM sound department records show Calvin Jackson was the pianist, and recorded his work on April 8, 1946. Jackson was an assistant director of music at MGM, scoring musicals at the time the cartoon was made. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter of July 17, 1946 ran an unsourced item that “Chopin’s 24th Prelude will serve as a background for ‘Cat’s Concerto’.” This is possible; Bill Hanna wrote in his autobiography that Chopin had been considered as the musical background for the cartoon.

MGM sent out the usual publicity materials for columnists. I’ve found this in several papers, including the Salt Lake Deseret News on March 14.

JERRY MOUSE SHOWS MAESTRO CAT LIVELY TIME IN NEW MGM CARTOON
To the names of Joseffy, De Pachmann, Rubinstein, Schnabel and other immortal pianists, must now be added that of a new impresario—Maestro Tom Cat, concert pianist extraordinaire. Tom gives an exhibition of his virtuosity in the new M-G-M Tom Jerry Cartoon, "The Cat Concerto" and it is a performance that has to be seen and heard to be believed.
Tom makes his appearance before the concert audience and begins what he hopes will be brilliant rendition of the Liszt Second Hungarian Rhapsody. Resplendently dressed in white tie and tails, he is a picture of classical dignity, and with a grandiloquent bow, he begins to play. But what Mr. Liszt didn’t reckon with when he composed the immortal Rhapsody was the presence of a mischievous Jerry Mouse inside the keyboard of the piano. To Jerry's anti-symphonic ear, music is nothing more than a lot of noise and he registers his disapproval by trying to break up the concert.
In the ensuing riot of music and mayhem, no piano ever took more punishment—and no pianist ever was so harrassed. Chords turn into discords; arpeggios, trills and cadenzas become embroiled in a series of flying piano keys and hammers as Jerry goes to work to systematically plague the pianist. Tom responds with his usual alacrity.
Since Jerry can keep thinking up more ways to annoy his perennial foes than could be imagined, the antics of the feuding duo keep things humming at a hilarious pace until the number has come to a finish that has exhausted the palpitating pianist. In the end, it is a triumphant Jerry Mouse who takes the bows and receives the overwhelming ovation of the audience. Fred Quimby produced “The Cat Concerto” which won a special Academy Award last night.

Going through the popular press at the time, reaction to the cartoon was electric. Before it was released, Hedda Hopper wrote on March 20 “It’s as sensational as Walt Disney’s ‘Three Little Pigs,’ and should be just as popular.”

This is from the May 28, 1947 edition of the Syracuse Herald Journal

ON THE SCREEN
Tom and Jerry Oscar Winners
By MARJORIE TURNER
WHEN FRANZ LISZT wrote his immortal Second Hungarian Rhapsody he probably never expected it to inspire loud and long laughter, but there is nothing sacred, it seems. The Liszt composition was worked into a Tom and Jerry cartoon by MGM's Fred C. Quimby, and it took an Academy award this year as the best cartoon production of the year.
"THE CAT CONCERTO," which completes the bill of "The Yearling" at Loew's this week, is a bit of rapid fire nonsense which translates human emotions through the cat and mouse principals. Tom Cat goes swanky, puts on tie and tails, and proceeds to give a highbrow concert. Jerry Mouse is outraged at his presumption, and sets out to embarrass him and spoil the show. It's as simple as that, but the humor and the art which went into the mysterious process of the animated cartoon put it at the top of the list for the drawing board funny men. This is the fifth year that Mr. Quimby has produced a prize winning nonsense film.
ANIMATED cartoons have a definite place in the motion picture world, a place which has been established not alone by the technical development of that branch of motion picture making, but by certain characters which amount to a legend with children—and grownups. After all, if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science thinks cartoons are that important, and if 7,000 kids will trek downtown on any Saturday morning to see an all cartoon show, it is a force to be reckoned with.

From the Akron Beacon Journal, May 9, 1947:

'Cat Concerto' Superb Cartoon
By BETTY FRENCH, Theater Editor
OSCAR SMITH, music-lovers, and just plain movie-goers, please note:
Don't miss "The Cat Concerto," at Loew's.
That's the cartoon which won this year's Academy award. It stars Tom and Jerry, the feuding cat and mouse who have scampered off with five Academy awards in the past seven years—a record unmatched by any other cartoon characters.
And it contains the most delightful portrayal of a concert pianist in screen history.
* * *
The role of the pianist is played by Tom, the puss whose composure Jerry, the mouse, loves to ruffle.
Tom never has been more composed, and more majestic than he is at the start of this picture.
In immaculate full-dress, he comes on stage, bows, and seats himself at the piano with greater dignity than Rubenstein and Horowitz combined.
His expression of benign superiority is priceless. His mannerisms are perfect, even to lifting his coat-tails, rubbing his paws, and wiping them daintily with his handkerchief.
* * *
Then he starts playing—Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody. His technique is excellent. M-G-M does not credit the real pianist, but it might even be Iturbi, who is on the Metro payroll.
Tom's playing awakens Jerry, who has set up housekeeping in back of the keyboard. He begins to try to break up the concert. He doesn't break it up but he joins in, wears out Tom, the virtuoso, and takes the bows himself.
* * *
THE CARTOON runs for seven minutes, and is a pleasure every one of the seven.
Throughout the seven minutes it has a continuous background of piano music. Tom keeps playing—with his hind feet when his fore-paws are busy bashing Jerry.
And Jerry helps him out by adding improvisations of his own, including boogie-woogie, by jumping about on the keys or by pounding them with the piano's own hammers.
The cartoon contains not a word of dialog, not even a squeak or a meow.
Whereas most cartoons have many shifts of scene, and bring in many different props for their characters to use in attacking each other, "The Cat Concerto" uses only Tom, Jerry and the piano.
Yet it has speed and variety. It is a masterpiece of unity, ingenuity, and humor.

The Selma Times-Journal of May 4 concluded its story with “A melange of melody, mirth and mayhem follows to make ‘The Cat Concerto,’ an unique and memorable bit of musical tomfoolery.

And the literary section of The Age published in Melbourne, Australia, on Aug. 27, 1947 had this to say:

TRIUMPH of the CAT CONCERTO
Although full animated features such as Fantasia and Snow White took leading places, deservedly, in their years of release, it is not often that an animated short has claims to rank among the first ten. But I think when the show down comes the cartoon, Cat Concerto, will be there for 1947.
This crazy but utterly delightful fantasy in color which is being screen at the St. James is, I think, easily the best thing of its kind that has yet been made. It is one item on a supporting programme of shorts. The feature film, Fiesta, is worth seeing, but if there were nothing else than The Cat Concerto showing it would be worth full admission prices to see it alone.
The cartoon is one of the famous Tom and Jerry series, all of which have been good, but this one, which won an Academy award, deserves half a dozen Oscars instead of one only. In it Tom is Maestro Tom Cat in full evening dress, oozing dignity at every pore—and paw. He makes a perfect platform entrance, and crosses to a grand piano. There his bow before he takes his seat is a gesture of rare beauty. Then there is some entrancing business with a snowy handkerchief as he wipes his hands. With one hand poised over the keyboard he glances towards the unseen conductor, and bursts into the Liszt Second Hungarian Rhapsody.
Hackneyed as it is, that composition never took such a beating from an artist as from Maestro Tom Cat. What Tom did not know was that Jerry Mouse was asleep inside the piano. Jerry resented the interruption of his slumbers, and the vengeance he took on Tom, Liszt and the piano made the performance something unforgettable.
Despite Jerry's fiendish devices to wreck Tom's composure and dignity, Tom sticks to the keyboard with heroic fortitude. The battle which lasts for ten minutes' playing time, is that much highly concentrated hilarious fun in which the piano battles with the laughter of the audience for a hearing. Last seen the perspiring and exhausted maestro is standing back, while the impenitent Jerry takes the spotlight.
It is claimed by the studio that the making of the cartoon occupied its artists for seven months. Few who see it will doubt the statement. Its creation demanded a reckless sense of humor, patience, elastic imagination and an intimate knowledge of the innards of a piano, combined with first-class artistry in every department. But everyone connected with The Cat Concerto may be justly proud of his or her share in the creation of a masterpiece.

It is worth repeating the insight of Jerry Beck that cartoon release dates in the trades had nothing to do with when films arrived at an exchange, and they could be booked once they did. In other words, cartoons appeared on screen before the official release. On April 2, a newspaper ad for the Fox in San Bernadino read “SCOOP” and announced the cartoon was appearing that afternoon with Sinbad the Sailor, starring Doug Fairbanks, Jr. On April 10, it was booked into Loew’s Palace in Washington, D.C. and Loew’s State in Cleveland. And “Extra!” read an ad for the Boyd in Philadelphia on April 18. It had been added to the bill.

The cartoon did not appear in New York City until May 7. The Hollywood Reporter revealed it would only be seen at the Broadway with Monsieur Verdoux but the Tom and Jerry short Salt Water Tabby would debut that same day in 30 Loew’s theatres in the city. That’s how you treat an Oscar winner?

Meanwhile, the Interstate Theatre chain controlling 160 houses in Texas and New Mexico, was making arrangements to screen a 90-minute programme made up of nine shorts from various studios, tied together with narration by Mel Blanc. The Cat Concerto was one, so were Tex Avery’s Hound Hunters and the Warners cartoon Birth of a Notion, according toThe Hollywood Reporter of May 7. Interstate was the theatre chain which employed Besa Short, the woman credited with getting Fred Quimby to get MGM to put out a second Tom and Jerry cartoon after Puss Gets the Boot.

If you want to learn more about this Oscar-winner, you can do no better than to read Thad Komorowski’s diggings in this Cartoon Research post.

I shy away from embedding videos in this blog because links can very easily go dead. However, I will link to a couple of versions of the cartoon, thanks to Devon Baxter, the finest young researcher out there today. The first is from a DVD featuring a commentary by animator Eric Goldberg. The second one gives a breakdown of the animators and their scenes. As you know, Ken Muse did a masterful job in much of the cartoon, but there is uncredited footage by Don Patterson and Dick Bickenbach, who may also have laid out this short.