User Reviews

This features some great, fast-moving swing music right off the bat as Tom and Jerry are in a stagecoach shooting it out with Indians. The music and gunfire is fast and some of the sight gags clever. For instance, they lose a back wheel and one of the boys attaches a crutch to it so the stagecoach keeps racing, but with a limp!

Things go from bad to worse as the stagecoach is blasted away until only the axle is left with the boys racing on it, then that's gone and Tom and Jerry are running for their lives. It really gets wild then - with non-stop foot-stomping music - as the Indians fire everything at them and these two guys make like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig batting everything away with baseball bats.

It even gets crazier with some very clever gags like the Indians feeding arrows into a machine gun and then using their feathers to literally fly after Tom and Jerry.

I won't say any more except that this is the most entertaining "Human Tom and Jerry" cartoon I've seen thus far. I does settle down but only for a brief second or two. When it's over, you're almost worn out..

Back in the early 1930s, Van Beuren made a series of Tom & Jerry cartoons that bore no similarity whatsoever to the classic MGM characters of the 1940s and 50s. Until I saw "Redskin Blues", I would have said ALL the original Tom & Jerry cartoons sucked...but this one was actually very enjoyable...but also is bound to offend many who watch it today due to changing sensibilities.

Tom & Jerry are somehow being attacked by marauding Indians...in 1932! They are eventually captured and before they get burned alive, Tom & Jerry play some music and then alert the cavalry....and not only does the cavalry show up, but airships, airplanes, tanks and pretty much any sort of military that could have shown up out west...including a battle ship! This is all completely ridiculous...which is exactly why I liked it. Funny and the animation, though relatively cheap compared to some other studios, is quite effective...but don't say I didn't warn you...and the politically correct out there might just wanna skip this one.

The Van Beuren Tom and Jerry (as said already not the famous cat and mouse, this is a human duo that lasted for just under 30 cartoons, 29 if memory serves correct, between 1931 and 1933) series was interesting but uneven and not easy to rate as an overall whole. At the series' best, the cartoons were good, very good in a few cases. At its worst, they were really bad.

My review refers to 'Redskin Blues' succeeding one of the series' worst cartoons 'Plane Dumb'. That cartoon was very poor and one that had a lot more wrong to it than it being racially offensive. 'Redskin Blues' is slight in story and contains as ever for the series primitive animation, particularly in the character designs, that looks simplistic and static throughout. Otherwise, it's well done and entertaining with many delightful elements, of the Tom and Jerry cartoons it's one of the better ones.

As to be expected, the music is outstanding, the bluesy style infectiously catchy. Even in the worst Tom and Jerry cartoons it was the best asset. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and full of energy, doing so well with enhancing the action.

'Redskin Blues' is one of the more inventive and funniest Tom and Jerry cartoons. The increasing absurdity is a good thing because that's the basic style of humour the series strives for, and when the cartoons succeed (like here) and make the most of it it's great fun. The stagecoach part is a good example of this, while the dancing sequence contains delightful little things (like with the squaws) and the escape scene is one of the series' most inspired.

It's also one of the most action-packed cartoons with plenty of gags, non-stop liveliness and fast timing. The Native Indians are stereotypical but you are having too much fun with them and their interaction with Tom and Jerry, who carry the cartoon much more compellingly than most of their cartoons, to be bothered by this. This aspect is far more offensive and overt in other cartoons of theirs, the most notorious example of course being 'Plane Dumb'.

On the whole, one of the best Tom and Jerry cartoons. 8/10 Bethany Cox