Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
If you know Tom & Jerry a bit, world's most famous cat and mouse duo, then you certainly also know the general idea behind these many many cartoons starring the two. Cast hunts mouse and mouse fights back most of the time. But this one here is different. It is basically Tom and another cat arguing who gets Jerry for dinner. Jerry plays along until almost the very end, but then the phrase "When two fight, the third one laughs last." becomes reality and Jerry shows us what he is capable of. Sadly, I would say that this approach and plot idea are not really working and I found most of the comedy fairly forgettable and the slapstick also wasn't too great to be honest. It is probably among Hanna/Barbera's more known T&J works, even if it did not get the Oscar nomination, but it's certainly not among their best. Basically every time Jerry is on screen, it gets better, but it's just not (frequent) enough. At 8 minutes, it is slightly longer than they usually are. The year of production is 1943 (75th anniversary in 2018), the days of WWII still, and this time is probably also when Tom and Jerry may have been at their peak in terms of popularity. The good thing as always is that you can enjoy it pretty much without subtitles, even if you don't speak English at all. Even the scene towards the end with little devil Tom speaks for itself. All in all, this is one of the weaker recent episodes from the series. I give it a thumbs-down and don't recommend checking it out.
ccthemovieman-1
Two cats fighting over Jerry? Yup, that's the case here. Tom is just tormenting his buddy but some stray outside means to have Jerry as part of a submarine sandwich. Jerry tries to smooch up to each cat, playing up to one to stay away from other. That only works once for each cat. After that, this is just one big chase scene, but that's par for the course for a Tom and Jerry cartoon. What's different is that there are two cats chasing the mouse. Thankfully, for Jerry's sake, the cats are also beating each other up while trying to hold onto the elusive mouse. Finally, Jerry starts producing pain for both cats, something he's used to doing to poor Tom.All in all, it makes for a fairly wild eight minutes, with most of the laughs in the second half of it, particularly when Tom is about to chop Jerry in half, but then gets another idea whispered in his ear from "the Devil." As always, the devil's advice winds up to be the wrong kind
Shawn Watson
Nothing of any particular interest or originality happens in this short. Tom is having his usual fun tormenting Jerry but the mouse runs into a stray cat and pretends to be best friends with him (by kissing him-gay lovers?) to upset Tom. Soon both cats are feuding over Jerry whilst being set-up by him. Oh, do watch my sides as they just might split! I wasn't really impressed and there's not a lot to laugh at in the 8-minute running time. The short actually has some dialogue in it but there's no credited voices for some reason on this page. There's nothing I can recommend about this cartoon as it is Tom and Jerry at their most basic. The title is rather generic too.
movieman_kev
Tom the cat has got Jerry the mouse on a fishing line and is toying with him much to Jerry's chagrin. So after he gets away he runs into a cat that scares Tom. Jerry think he's saved onto to realize that the second cat just wants to eat him himself. What follows is classic slapstick as the two cats fight over who gets the meal. But they both get their just desserts in the end. Tom and Jerry are in their top form here and are a delight to watch as they ALMOST are (the feature film where they're best pals is horrid, but I digress).This hilarious cartoon can be found on disc one of the Spotlight collection DVD of "Tom & Jerry" My Grade: A-
