The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

. . . during this 1943 Looney Tune, TIN PAN ALLEY CATS. Though it comments some on current events (depicting Stalin kicking Hitler's butt in the World War Two battle for Stalingrad, Russia), the final portion of CATS consists of a Private Message from Warner to Emmett's mom Mamie (these names are validated on Wikipedia and elsewhere) warning her NEVER to bring her then-toddler son anywhere near Ted Turner's Racist "Jim Crow" South. Warner populates this final portion of CATS with dozens of symbolic warning devices, including the lips of a grieving Till Family Member (Emmett's Dad?) plodding along post-lynching, lamenting "Mamie, Mamie, Mamie." Warner's cartooning scribes frequently found their colored pencils being directed by a Ouija Board-like impulse from Beyond, usually portending some sort of American death or disaster. No doubt this warning was meant to keep young Emmett away from that serial attendee of MGM's racist offerings, GONE WITH THE WIND FAN J.W. Milam. However, Mamie somehow missed Warner's warning and took Emmett to Money, MS, where J.W. slew him Aug. 28, 1955. That bastion of American Racism, Atlanta "Braves" owner and televised "Tomahawk Chopper" Ted Turner soon added CATS to his infamous cover-up scheme called "The Censored Eleven."

Having just watched his Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, I was in for a nice surprise when I watched on Thad's Animation Blog, Bob Clampett's next cartoon that was on the "Censored 11" list: Tin Pan Alley Cats. The leading character is a black-face feline inspired by Fats Waller who chooses "wine, women, and song" over a Salvation Army-type band. From there we see lots of jazz-inspired images of various entertainers before we go to a dream sequence taken directly from Clampett's own Porky in Wackyland with some hilariously wacky additions like the "rubber band" (which would appear in the color remake Dough for the Do-Do) and caricatures of Tojo, Hitler, and a Russian leader kicking the latter (the Soviet Union being our allies at the time)! In other words, Clampett has done it again making a kaleidoscope of images that only he can conjure up! The fact that many of the scenes were reused animation didn't bother me in the least. So on that note, I highly recommend Tin Pan Alley Cats.

...that some of the cleverest cartoons were also some of the most racially offensive? Among the examples are Bob Clampett's "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" and "Tin Pan Alley Cats". This one portrays a Fats Walker-resembling feline who gets blasted outta this world into a setting lifted out of Clampett's earlier "Porky in Wackyland".Yes, it seems like every time that they came up with a particularly novel idea, it came out like this. Well, maybe not every time. I would advise not watching this for straight-forward entertainment, but rather as a look at Hollywood's portrayal of African-Americans over the years. Available on YouTube.

Uggghhh!!!! This is one of several Looney Toons cartoons that were shelved decades back due to their strongly racist content. And while SOME of them are actually highly offensive BUT well-made, this one is a bore even if it weren't full of racial stereotypes. For some of these offensive cartoons, I have recommended people watch them--particularly for their historical value. However, this one has really nothing to recommend it--being a long cartoon with nothing but stupid music and very, very big-lipped Black characters acting,...well,...STUPID! So, the film is offensive, poorly made and not particularly entertaining--everything you'd like in a cartoon, huh?! (this is sarcasm, by the way)