= TOM AND JERRY - THE MOVIE =

However there's certainly nothing 'laid-back about Mancini in terms of his music's energy and commitment. In the control-room, during the recording, it met with instant and warm-hearted approval: Producer/Director Phil Roman and Executive Producer Roger Mayer sat for hours with huge smiles permanently pinned across their faces. No one with any sense throws superlatives around indiscriminately - like fortissimos, less means more - but we all felt that, on this occasion, Hank had pulled an especially handsome rabbit (Tom would have preferred a mouse!) out of the hat. We hope you agree.

- CHRISTOPHER PALMER
London, July 23, 1992

That some of the world's finest musicianship is to be found in so-called 'commercial' music has long been a fact-of-life; and Henry Mancini must be one of its best representatives. Those who know him as the composer of 'Moon River' and other classic popular songs and themes may be surprised to learn that he is also a first-rate all-round musician.

In the 50 years he's been in the business - amazing to look at him and say that! - he's 'done it all' (to quote Captain Kiddie in Tom and Jerry) and has all the technique, all the professional expertise he needs to give his ideas their due. In Tom and Jerry he needed it. Animated films are a particular challenge for a composer. Most cartoon-scores keep a momentum going - that's what's required of them, little more, little less - but are unlistenable-to as music. 

But Tom and Jerry - the Movie is what it says it is - a Movie - and needed more sophisticated treatment. So Mancini approached it just as he would an 'ordinary' feature-film with 'real' characters. The music helps to make them real, to make fun funnier, danger more dangerous. It adds a gloss of credibility to everyone and everything. And even when the music is slapstick - as in the 'Food-Fight Polka' - it's funny and witty but never silly. Mancini-music is always musical. Which brings me to the songs, to the 'musical' (in another sense) aspect of the score. 

Everybody sings at some point, each character has his or her own song. Leslie Bricusse supplied the words: Mancini then ransacked showbiz (i.e. Broadway, Vaudeville et al.) for all the clichés he could find. But - he doesn't treat them as clichés, doesn't send them up, recomposes them AS IF HE BELIEVED IN THEM - which of course, he does. The result is that WE believe in them too. Once you've heard 'Friends To The End', 'I've Done It All' and 'I Miss You (Robyn's Song)' for the first time, you'll want to hear them again - quick. And the 'Tom And Jerry' (instrumental) theme itself. Why the boogie woogie rhythm? It certainly has something of a 'dogged' quality, (sorry Tom!) captures something of the endless, ongoing feuding and fighting, chase me/catch me routine which is such a familiar part of the Tom and Jerry persona. 

That shoulder-shrugging gesture is typical Mancini. 
He is a man of few words and even less fuss. 'Laid-back' is how people describe him: we see it, for instance, in the way he employs the fortissimo in the orchestra. Many composers have it all the time, every other measure: with Hank you're lucky if you get one - just one - in the entire duration of a score. But what a one, when it happens! For Hank, less is more. His manner of recording is also laid-back (though not leisurely) and constantly enlivened by exchanges like the following (with the orchestra contractor/concert master, Sidney Sax):