Gay Purr-ee (1962)

Too much of everything

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

France is a beautiful country or I will simply say, "La France est Belle". One must explore the beauty of the other side of the country, you just got to find the right connections. But this film is from the cat's eye view. Voiced by the wonderful actors and actresses, this animated movie is magnificent in a way. You got Judy Garland, Robert Goulet, and the voice of "Bugs Bunny" and other Looney Tunes characters, Mel Blanc. And the magic of Chuck Jones is nice. Here you have this cat who like a lavish lifestyle, and her boyfriend cat is not socially open. This lavish starved feline wanted to leave the farm life and head out to Gay Paris. However, the cat she hooked up with have other plans for her. So when the boyfriend cat brings along his friend, they start to have an adventure of their own. So when she's shown of the artwork that she can be on, she would later find out that the concat is shipping her out to the USA. While the two male cats get sent to cold parts of the USA, only to return to Paris, RICH! When the feline cat suffered a setback from fulfilling a dream, she feels redeemed when the boyfriend fought back to get what he loved. When where you live doesn't make you happy, it's great to try out something new. You just have to experience life for yourself and not let anything or anyone break your spirit. A great cartoon. I wished that it got a better results from back then. 5 stars

I was eight years old when this film came out. I never got to see it then but had a comic book version which I read over and over again: I loved the story, the characters, the illustrations. So, I thought that after 50 years I should finally check out the film. I was sorely disappointed. The acting (Judy Garland, Robert Goulet, Red Buttons, Hermione Gingold, etc.) is excellent but although the orchestral background music is nice, the lyrics to the songs are embarrassingly banal. And while the drawings are fine, the animation is really poor. It reminds one of the static (limited animation) Hanna-Barbera technique. A story like this, with a star-studded cast, deserved much more than this. I think an interesting project would be to retain the soundtrack and the drawings, but bring the latter to life with modern animation techniques. One wants to experience the breadth and depth of Paris, the mystery of the felines crawling through sewers, down alleyways and over housetops, the thrill of a ship sailing rough seas to the Arctic. As it is now, it's all flat.

Although too long at 85 minutes, this animated musical from UPA is quite tuneful, with visual wit and flair to spare. Slim plot, about a French barnyard feline seeking adventures in Paris, is helped considerably by bright Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg songs, and of course by Judy Garland's incandescent speaking and singing voice as Mewsette. Never popular with children, the film's writing tends to place the accent on sophisticated conversation, less on animated hilarity. Consequently, it isn't a big crowd-pleaser, although students of animation would be wise to check it out (the humorous art history lesson on the Impressionists is worth the time alone). **1/2 from ****

I love Judy Garland, I have a few of her films. And I love movies that are set in Paris like "The Last Time I Saw Paris" starring Elizabeth Taylor (another favorite actress of mine) and Van Johnson; also the Pixar animated film "Ratatouille." One last thing to say is that I am cat lover, as I said many times.Judy did a wonderful job as Mewsette, both in speaking and singing for her. And Chuck Jones did a excellent job with the production and animation of the film; Chuck Jones is one of my favorite animators. So overall, this film is an excellent piece of animation. It is colorful and beautifully animated, with songs you will remember and love.