Gay Purr-ee (1962)

Sadly Over-hyped

An unexpected masterpiece

Absolutely amazing

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

If you have a long career in film and are known for your voice, you will eventually be asked to provide it for a film. It wasn't only Disney doing animated films during the hey-dey of their classic cartoon features, even though it was a rare occurrence for other major films. This came on top of "101 Dalmations" at Disney, so instead of some fabulous spotted dogs, you've got a variety of cats, hep ones, sweet ones, villainous ones, and in the case of one big eccentric cat, a total camp kitty.Judy Garland provides the voice of Mewsette, the innocent white cat who wants something more than her provincial life (to quote the leading lady of another animated classic). So she leaves behind lover kitty Jaune-Tom (Robert Goulet) and heads to the big city of lights, falling prey to the nefarious Meowrice (Paul Frees) while being turned into a sophisticate by the wacky Mme. Rubens-Chatte (Hermoine Gingold). It's up to Jaune-Tom to rescue her from the fate Frees has in store for her.This was a reunion for Garland and "The Wizard of Oz" song-writing team of E.Y. Harburg and Harold Arlen (also the writer of "Get Happy"), and the score they provide for her is a delight. "Paris Is a Lonely Town" should be up there with the songs which Judy sang about other cities, and it is a shame it was not nominated for an Oscar. Goulet, then a big hit thanks to "Camelot" on Broadway, is great singing opposite Judy, while Red Buttons provides great comic relief. Frees, of course, is an animated voice over veteran, having frightened children (and make them laugh at the same time) as the Burgonmeister in "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". All you have to do is mention Hermoine Gingold, and you know exactly what you're going to get. Definitely worthy of re-discovery, "Gay Pur-ee" is a beautiful tribute to the city of lights and totally endearing even amongst the more well known Disney classics.

As a long-time animation fan, I sincerely believed I had never seen this film before recently obtaining a video, then a "flashback" much like a recovered, repressed memory hit during the song "Bubbles"..... So, I saw the movie somewhere in my childhood, but have no fond memories or nostalgia about it.Part of me sincerely wants to like this film. There's something in it for young and old, the music is superbly rendered, and the plot will appeal to younger children without being insulting to their intellect, though it may be a bit much for, say, those under eight or ten. And the characters have Chuck Jones' DNA all over them--anyone familiar with his later work with Warner Brothers, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," etc., will see all the signature expressions, facial builds, movement flow, etc.That being said, however, the picture has several problems. Don't let Warner Brothers logos fool you; this is a UPA animation project, and it entails all the grainy, "low-budget" feel UPA was famous for (think Mr. Magoo or early Japanese anime). It works in its own novel way in this film, but anyone who has grown up in the CGI era that has brought us The Simpsons, Wall-E, Lilo and Stitch, Cars, Up, Tangled, Wallace & Gromit, Beauty & The Beast, etc. is likely to look at this and scream "Are they kidding?" Furthermore, although the musical talent was excellent in this picture (even on low-tech videotape, the songs come off superbly rendered, among the best animation has ever offered), the pacing of the movie and its music hearkens right back to the movies of the Fifties, Forties, and earlier where the movies were musicals that served more as vehicles for the musical soundtrack, not the other way around. If you go into this expecting the big musical where they continually interrupt the story to sing another song, you'll do fine, but many contemporary children may get fidgety and think "get on with it already!" All told, I don't want to discourage this film. But I suggest that any viewer, over fifty years after it was made, consider the cinematic perspective of the time in which it was released, just as one should with any other decades-old film, animated or not.

This is a nice alternative to the Disney films for those who enjoy the really elaborate hand-drawn animation of those days but who want to look at some of the other stuff that was being done. Chuck Jones' name is on here as one of the writers, and his fingerprints are all over it. There's great little moments like when the lead cat, Jaune-Tom (voied by Robert Goulet) spots a mouse in the distance and his whole body is electrified before he dashes off after it at light speed.The film also provides an opportunity for Judy Garland, who voices the lead kitty Mewsette, to reunite with her "Wizard of Oz" songwriters "Yip" Harburg and Harold Arlen, although sadly none of the resulting tunes approach that film's magic. "Paris is a Lonely Town" is an OK ballad for Garland, and most of the songs work well in the movie, but the only section that I think is really memorable musically is the part with the alley-cats, "The Money Cat," which also features some of the film's most stylish animation. I'm a big fan of Harburg and Arlen so it really pains me to say that I just do not think that they were on top of their game exactly here. It's not bad music, and it's not bad for the movie, there's just nothing that really goes over the top and works on anything more than the basic level.The animation in this film is elaborate, really almost over-elaborate. It's perfectly suitable for the song "Bubbles" to become very weird and hectic because it's a scene where Jaune-Tom and his buddy Robespierre (voiced distinctively by Red Buttons) are getting drunk for the first time. It's a bit like the pink elephants scene in "Dumbo", but with goofier music and not as scary. Some of the other musical/animation sequences are a bit dull and really just padding the film basically. The scene where Mewsette is supposed to be posed in all these portraits by Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec or whatever was really sort of bizarre even though it was obviously well-intentioned. "Little Drops of Rain" stops the film dead 1/3rd of the way into it and really has nothing to do with anything. The animation is fascinating, almost psychedelic which is striking in 1962, but it really isn't hinged to the movie very strongly. The way the music and the plot are mixed isn't very fluid, because instead of showing Mewsette or Jaunte-Tom singing in character they cut away to these montages which are somehow at the same time the one thing really worth seeing here especially for an adult viewer but also just seem very poorly integrated with the plot for the most part so that they always seem to stop the action. Again that's with the exception of "Bubbles", where it actually made sense for them to suddenly go into an intoxicated dream-vision.This is a interesting film; it's worth seeing. I think the integration of Garland's distinctive voice with this cute kitten character, which I was doubtful about going into the film, worked remarkably well. Goulet's voice is genial and matches the characterization in the animation quite well also. There's more perfect (oh god, don't let me say "purr-fect") casting with Hermione Gingold as a kind of fattened feline madame.I didn't care for the story overall however. It's a rather conservative story for people like Harburg and Arlen to be involved with: basically the cats are happy in the country but the woman thinks that she's going to be happier in the city because she hears a society lady talking about it, so she runs off. Yes that's her big independent character-building moment, about all that there is. It's romantic that Jaune-Tom followed her, and I enjoyed his adventures with Robespierre in Alaska and so forth, but then in the end the city is just this scary evil place and it turns out everybody would have been happier if they had just stayed home all along. And to me that's just not a very exciting or worthwhile message and I guess I just do not see the point of the movie other than just the fact that all these particular talents weren't working on anything better.

This is a G rated film that features the voice talents of Judy Garland, Robert Goulet, Red Buttons, and a host of the best voice actors working in animation at the time, including Paul Frees (Boris Badinov), Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Barney Rubble, and many more) and June Foray (Rocky the Squirrel). It combines their voices with colorful animation and beautiful dream sequences put to songs. The story takes place in France during the 1890s and involves a beautiful young feline named Mewsette (Garland) who leaves her home on the farm to become the toast of Paris. Her boyfriend (Goulet) and his small sidekick (Buttons) come after her to bring her back, but the evil Meowrice (Frees) already has her in his clutches. I enjoyed this as a child and again as an adult.