Tuesday, March 16, 2010

"Gay Purr-ee" - the feature-length Chuck Jones involving film you've never heard of

It will be some time before I can get a Disney World trip report ready for you (I will probably start writing it as a series of subject-specific blog posts after I finish catching up on my various internet type things). So here's a quick review of an animated film I found on Netflix, gawked at, screamed "THAT'S what it was called!", rented, and watched."Gay Purr-ee" is an oddly-named animated film made by United Productions of America in the early '60s, based upon a short-story written by Chuck and Dorothy Jones, and directed by Abe Levitow. And boy does it look like it. I must say that Chuck Jones' style doesn't often mesh well with the ultra-stylized UPA style. It's often jarring to see such fluidly animated characters against such psychedelic backgrounds. Then again, that means that this is an animated film that really doesn't look like anything else out there.The plot concerns the adventures of Mewsette, a farm cat living in the French countryside who dreams of a better, more fabulous life. Her suitor Jaune-Tom is content to live out in the country. Mewsette overhears some humans talking about Paris and she stows away in a Paris-bound suitcase. Jaune-Tom runs after her with his Obligatory Sidekick in tow. Before they can catch up with her, Mewsette falls in with a conman (or concat, whatever) and... you can guess the rest.

Except, perhaps, for the part about the Alaska gold rush.
It's funny how this movie could very easily be confused with "The Aristocats", with a dash of Don Bluth's "All Dogs Go To Heaven" (in that it is another movie where you also must not ask why the animals are conning each-other out of money -- what do animals even *want* with man's money?) But this was made almost a full decade *before* "Aristocats". Hmmm...So is the movie any good? Well, it's always fun to watch something Chuck Jones was involved in, but there is one major thing to consider: The leads are voiced by Judy Garland and Robert Goulet. Now ask me, a person who it has been established does not enjoy musicals, if they EVER STOP SINGING...



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