Gay Purr-ee

Plot synopsis:
The story is set in 1895 France and takes place predominantly in Paris. However, it begins on a farm in rural Provence. The lovely housecat Mewsette and the accomplished but shy mouser Jaune Tom are in love ("Mewsette"), until the former is frustrated with his plebeian ways (and those of the farm), to the point of calling him a "clumsy country clod". Inspired by the human Jeanette's stories of glamour and sophistication in Paris ("Take My Hand, Paree"), Mewsette runs away by taking a train to the big city ("Roses Red, Violets Blue"), where she encounters the slick con-cat Meowrice (Paul Frees). Taking advantage of the country kitty's naivete, he puts her in the care of the sultry Madame Henretta Reubens-Chatte, who promises to turn Mewsette into a dainty debutante known as "The Belle of all Paris". Unbeknownst to Mewsette, Meowrice is grooming her to be the mail-order bride of a rich American cat in Pittsburgh known as "Mr. Henry Phtt" ("The Money Cat"). Meanwhile, Jaune Tom and his sidekick Robespierre arrive in Paris, searching for Mewsette.
Training does not go well. Just as Mewsette is about to give up and return to the farm, Meowrice takes her out to see the cat side of Paris, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées and the Mewlon Rouge and then take a buggy ride back home ("The Horse Won't Talk"). Reinvigorated, she returns to her studies. Jaune Tom and Robespierre arrive just at that moment but get waylaid by one of Meowrice's shadowy cat henchmen and barely escape drowning in Paris's famous labyrinthine sewers. By coincidence, Jaune Tom displays his incredible mouse-hunting skills in front of Meowrice (known as "Virtue-Mousety"), who sees a money-making opportunity, gets them drunk ("Bubbles"), and sells them as mousers to a ship bound for Alaska. On the ship, Robespierre consoles a depressed Jaune Tom, telling him that any problem, regardless of size, can be broken up into manageable pieces, by remarking that even the mighty ocean is made up of little drops of water. Jaune Tom has a vision of Mewsette singing about how no problem is unconquerable, and the importance of never giving up ("Little Drops of Rain").
Mewsette finishes her training and is now lovely enough to impress even Meowrice, who commissions a series of paintings of her by such famous artists as Claude Monet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Georges Seurat, Henri Rousseau, Amedeo Modigliani, Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Pablo Picasso (an opportunity for the animators to indulge in some artistic parodies), so that he can send them to Mr. Phtt. Meowrice quietly writes a check to pay his "sister", Madame Reubens-Chatte (using disappearing ink, so that the check is worthless), and takes Mewsette to his hideout in Notre Dame. There, he reveals his plan to ship her to America and tries to coerce her to enter a luggage crate, but after seeing a portrait of Mr. Phtt depicting him as fat and old, she manages to escape Meowrice and his sidekicks. In the resulting chase scene, she leads them to a bulldog, who injures Meowrice badly enough to put him out of action for six weeks. Meanwhile, his sycophants (who are nowhere near as intelligent as he is) comb the city without success, searching for Mewsette.
Meanwhile, not long after they reach Alaska (a howling wilderness of snow), Jaune Tom and Robespierre strike gold thanks to the former's mouse-hunting skills. Now wealthy, the two cats hurry back to Paris.
A disillusioned and homeless Mewsette wanders around the streets of Paris, eventually ending up sitting atop a bridge over the river, considering ending her misery ("Paris is a Lonely Town"), but gets captured by Meowrice and his sidekicks. She is taken to the Gare du Nord railway station, en route to a boat to America, and all hope seems lost, when Jaune Tom and Robespierre arrive. They have been aided by Madame Ruebens-Chatte, who is irritated that her own "brother" double-crossed her and tears up the worthless check. In a humorously over-the-top fight scene inside the boxcar of a moving train, the three heroes defeat Meowrice and pack him into the crate intended for Mewsette, doubtless that this will be a nasty surprise for Mr. Phtt. The film concludes with Mewsette, Jaune Tom and Robespierre enjoying the high life in Paris that Mewsette was seeking when she left home ("Mewsette Finale").

Tags: psychedelic

Review:
But it does manage a certain kind of epic magic, more akin to the impressionist style it emulates than to the "MTV video feel" behind most of today's standard animation works.Gay Pur-ree (which aired in my country as "La Fair Mewsette", to my mind a MUCH better title) is a throwback to an age of innocence (corny as this may sound) in more than one sense; in those days, a simple, humane story was all the charm a story needed (my, that DID sound corny indeed).
I felt as they said you should feel after watching an animated movie.*sigh*Maybe not a must see, but certainly a must remember.
Madame Rubinschottz, the large, pink cat of ill repute with the long eyelashes and big, red lips who sends out the despicable Meowrice, the scoundrel who is to bring a lovely kitty (Mewsette) into her fold.
Paul Frees' voice is perfect for Meowrice, as is Robert Goulet's for Jeune-Tom. Judy Garland's voice is in fine fettle as Mewsette.
I've never seen another like it.This is one of those movies parents can allow their children to enjoy without fear of their being exposed to too much sex and violence.
The animation is quite unique, in that most of the backgrounds and such look like something out of an Impressionist painting, and are very beautiful.
Red Buttons is very cute as Jaune-Tom's (Robert Goulet) small sidekick.
The Harburg/Arlen songs are excellent, and they work nearly as well with Judy here as they did in The Wizard of Oz (1939), that marvel that truly started her entire career.
The story is a little low on magic, but is pretty charming, and small children will like it.
All in all, a treat for fans of Garland, Goulet, Harburg and Arlen, and original animation style..
Gay Purr-ee is the most beautiful movie I ever remember seeing as a child.
Unfortunately I don't remember the story-line in great detail, because many years have passed but I remember some very touching scenes from this movie.
Judy Garland, Chuck Jones and cats, a real dream of a pairing!.
I love Judy Garland, and think her performances in The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St Louis and A Star is Born are timeless.
Chuck Jones is a terrific animation director as well, who has directed some of the best cartoons in existence in my opinion.
And I love cats, they are cute, clever and lovely animals, and asides from Gay Purr-ee other great cat movies are The AristoCats(a film I always see this film compared to) and especially Felidae which is quite a different kettle of fish.Gay Purr-ee is simply terrific.
The animation is lovely, the visual style is unique and colourful and I loved the character designs of especially Mewsette and Meowrice, Mewsette is beautiful and charming and Meowrice is quite sophisticated.
The pacing is brisk, and I loved the inspired scene with the impressionist painters especially Van Gogh.My favourite assets though of Gay Purr-ee are the music and the voice work.
This film is more than a showcase for Judy Garland's talents despite what some might think.
Robert Goulet has a beautiful voice and Jean Tom avoids being bland thanks to the charm Goulet brings.
Red Buttons is like his character Robespierre, cute and funny, while the wonderful Paul Frees is outstanding as Meowrice.
And it was nice to hear Mel Blanc's distinctive voice again too.Overall, charming, witty, sophisticated and I think unfairly underrated animated film.
9/10 Bethany Cox. Judy's First (and only) Animated Film.
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.
It is colorful and beautifully animated, with songs you will remember and love..
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.
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).
I love this movie because the cats are so cute.
To me this movie feels like a Golden Era Hollywood musical that got turned into a cartoon with music.
Yes This is a great cartoon of which I'd first seen on Thanksgiving Saturday night of 1975.I even mistook The title for Gay Paree a.k.a./ or gay Pari.It's a very well made Cartoon.It only takes a few words to tell because there are few and far between to say about it or as the french may say eet.Jaune Tom makes a great character as you'll see.Judy Garland does a great voice supplementation too.Check out Chuck Jones' book Chuck Amuck too.Jaune Tom is interesting with his talent(s) too.Cordially,Stephen"Steve" G.
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.
The second one became the 1962 film Gay Purr-ee, released under Warner Brothers and directed by Abe Levitow, who has worked on many a Looney Tunes short with his partner Chuck Jones prior to this.Set in France in the 1890s, also known as the Gay '90s as the title implies, the film is about Mewsette (Judy Garland in her only voice role), a country feline living on a farm with the mouser Jaune-Tom (Robert Goulet in his film debut) and his partner, a small blue kitten named Robespierre (Red Buttons).
Jaune-Tom learns of Mewsette's departure from Robespierre and they head for Paris to try and find her.Even though the film is animated, it is, at heart, a musical, on par with many other musical films released before this, including the ones that also star Judy Garland.
Y. Harburg, the same duo who wrote the songs for the beloved 1939 MGM classic The Wizard of Oz. Even after 23 years, their songwriting still held water, with songs like the uplifting "Roses Red, Violets Blue", and the slower ballads like "Take My Hand Paris", "Little Drops of Rain", and my favorite one of them all, "Paris is a Lonely Town", to name a few.For the animation, if you're familiar with the shorts made by UPA, the animation is limited, but visually appealing and influential in terms of design and style, with French expressionism being a large inspiration of how the final film is supposed to look.
After watching the scene, you'll know why UPA was known for their unique style that other studios weren't doing in their heyday.The sad thing about this film is that it is not as well recognized as a lot of other animated classics.
Even the 1970 animated Disney film "The Aristocats", which also took place in France and focuses on...well...cats, became more popular.
"Gay Purr-ee" has some interest in that it was co-written by the great animation director Chuck Jones.
On the positive side, the movie does have some nice background art throughout (thought the actual animation is only so-so).
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.
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..
An animated curiosity starring Judy Garland.
The UPA cartoons were known for their stylish art direction and in this film the backgrounds and scenery are like beautiful impressionist paintings.
Unfortunately it's not enough to save this mediocre animated feature.The main character designs look generic and the performances from the impressive vocal cast (Judy Garland, Red Buttons, Robert Goulet, Hermione Gingold) are mostly bland.
Voice actor extraordinaire Paul Frees does a good job as the villain.The story concerns a farm cat in turn-of-the-century France who journeys to Paris and falls in with some shady characters, while her provincial beau comes to the city looking for her.
The songs are forgettable, though the musical sequences have style.The best scene is a brief lesson about famous artists of the era and their styles (Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Seurat, Degas, Renoir, etc.).
Quintessential French entertainer Maurice Chevalier sings the title song for THE ARISTOCATS, while Morey Amsterdam does the narration for GAY PURR-EE in his best Chevalier voice.
What people might find surprising is that the better-known Disney film was made eight years *after* this UPA feature.It's clear from other reviews that GAY PURR-EE (1962) is beloved by many who cherish the memory of watching it as children.
Judy Garland in Paris as a Cat!.
Judy Garland, Robert Goulet, and Red Buttons lent their voices to this animated movie about a cat, Mewsette, that dreams about leaving the French countryside to see the bright lights of Paris.
When Jaune-Tom (another cat obviously), voiced by Goulet, finds out she's gone, he must go after her.
I thought I remembered liking this years ago, but seeing it recently, I felt it to be an odd mixture of art-like animation and simple juvenile-type humor.
Instead it relies too much on the charm and talent of its stars, but that will be lost on children, particularly young children, who won't like the singing slowing down the picture.
Adults, who love the singing style of its stars, Garland and Goulet, may like its romanticism and feeling somewhat chic, and at the same time moody, but may be feel something's lacking.
But, maybe if you can find this little film, you can find more than meets the eye in Gay Purr-ee..
I remember enjoying this movie as a child, but, after viewing it some 30 years later as an adult, I wonder why it ever appealed to me.
(The one touch of inspiration was to paint the backgrounds in the styles of the great impressionist painters - most notably, Vincent Van Gogh.)  The music, though written by two of this century's greatest songwriters, is entirely forgettable.
When there are so many wonderful family films from which to choose, both animated and live-action, why squander your time by watching this one?.
I vaguely remember liking it and had an amusing time hearing Judy Garland doing vocals for an animated cat!
This is getting three stars just for the vocals of Garland and Robert Goulet--they even make the bland songs sound OK.
RELEASED IN 1962 and directed by Abe Levitow, "Gay Pur-ee" is an animated film about a beautiful feline, Mewsette (voiced by Judy Garland), whose romantic fantasies about life in Paris become the awful truth when she stows away to travel there, but her dreams are shattered by a shady cat (Paul Frees) and his "sister" (Hermione Gingold).
Meanwhile, a tomcat named Juane-Tom (Robert Goulet) goes to Paris to save Mewsette along with his lil' pal, Robespierre (Red Buttons).I suppose it helps if you're a cat-lover, but I always liked this cartoon flick.
Sure, there are too many songs and only enough story to make up for half the runtime, but "Gay Purr-ee" has its charm.
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.
She's in great voice and seems to be genuinely enjoying herself in the role of Mewsette.
The animation excellent and imaginative throughout, especially the sequence where Mewsette is depicted in the styles of various artists, and even though ace animator Abe Levitow gets sole directorial credit, it's obvious that executive producer Chuck Jones had a pretty active hand in things as well.One final note: In addition to owning the video myself, we also have it in the video collection of the library where I work.
Why didn't I know about it before?" And I tell them "Because it's one of the great hidden treasures of animated features." Which, I think, says it exactly..
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.
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.
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.
Some of the other musical/animation sequences are a bit dull and really just padding the film basically.
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.
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.
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.
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".