Studio: Van Beuren Studios
Short Synopsis
On a dark and stormy night, Tom and Jerry, a tall, lanky man and a short, round one, are taxi drivers waiting for fares outside a railway station. Two strange men in top hats and long beards get off a train and climb into their cab. The ride takes them out to a forbidding castle, where the passengers get out and walk inside without paying. Tom and Jerry follow them in to collect the fare and find themselves in a haunted house. They wander through stone halls and arches, and the strangers vanish. A skeleton sits down at a piano and plays, trees in the grounds come to life, and the two cabbies are pursued through a chain of spooky gags. The bearded strangers are behind it all, and how the night finally ends for the two cabbies is best left for the viewer; sources this book checked do not describe the final gag.
Why It Matters
- The film has the eerie, loose-limbed atmosphere that marks Van Beuren's cartoons: a rain-streaked opening at the station, a castle full of echoing arches, and a skeleton pianist whose bony fingers are given loving attention. It plays the old haunted-house formula with real enthusiasm for the creepy details.
- It is the first cartoon in Van Beuren's Tom and Jerry series, a human comedy duo created years before MGM's cat and mouse. Their films ran until 1933, and in later television reissues they were renamed Dick and Larry to avoid confusion with the much more famous pair.
Notes and Trivia
- Some descriptions credit George Rufle as co-director.
- See also: Midnight (1930), The Haunted House (1929).