Gay Purr-ee
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''Gay Purr-ee'' is a 1962 American
animated Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby image, still images are manipulated to create Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on cel, transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and e ...
musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serv ...
produced by United Productions of America and released by
Warner Bros Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American film studio, filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and th ...
. It features the voice of
Judy Garland Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. Possessing a strong contralto voice, she was celebrated for her emotional depth and versatility across film, stage, and concert performance. ...
as Mewsette, a feline living in the French countryside wanting to go to
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
in her only animated-film role, as well as
Robert Goulet Robert Gérard Goulet (November 26, 1933 October 30, 2007) was an American‐Canadian singer and actor of French-Canadian ancestry. Goulet was born and raised in Lawrence, Massachusetts, until age 13, and then spent his formative years in Canad ...
in his first feature film as her love interest Jaune Tom. While the film did receive positive reviews, in reality, it was a box office failure. It is also the first animated feature film to be theatrically released by Warner Bros, and the second and final animated film by UPA.


Plot

The story is predominantly set in 1895 Paris but starts on a rural
Provence Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which stretches from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the France–Italy border, Italian border to the east; it is bordered by the Mediterrane ...
farm. The lovely cat Mewsette and the accomplished but shy mouser Jaune Tom are in love until Mewsette becomes frustrated with Tom's plebeian ways (and those of farmlife), and calls him a "clumsy country clod". Inspired by the human Jeanette's stories of the glamour and sophistication of Parisian life, Mewsette runs away to Paris. Upon arrival, she encounters the slick con-cat Meowrice. Taking advantage of Mewsette's country naivete, he puts her in the sultry Madame Henrietta Reubens-Chatte care. She promises to turn Mewsette into a dainty
debutante A debutante, also spelled débutante ( ; from , ), or deb is a young woman of aristocratic or upper-class family background who has reached maturity and is presented to society at a formal "debut" ( , ; ) or possibly debutante ball. Origin ...
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 known as "Mr. Henry Phtt" ("The Money Cat"). Meanwhile, Jaune Tom and his sidekick, Robespierre, arrive in Paris to search for Mewsette. Mewsette's training does not go well. Just as she about to give up and return to the farm, Meowrice takes her out to see Paris' feline side of the
Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889. Locally nicknamed "''La dame de fe ...
, the
Champs-Élysées The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an Avenue (landscape), avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, long and wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc ...
, the Mewlon Rouge, and then a buggy ride back to Madame Henrietta's. Reinvigorated, she returns to her studies. Jaune Tom and Robespierre arrive in Paris but get waylaid by one of Meowrice's shadowy cat henchmen and barely escape drowning in Paris's labyrinthine sewers. By coincidence, Jaune Tom displays his incredible mouse-hunting skills in front of Meowrice, who seeing a money-making opportunity, gets them drunk, and sells them as mousers on a ship bound for Alaska. On the ship, Robespierre consoles a depressed Jaune Tom, telling him that any problem can be broken up into manageable pieces. Mewsette finishes her training and is now lovely enough to impress even Meowrice, who commissions a series of portraits of her to send to Phtt. Meowrice quietly writes a check with
invisible ink Invisible ink, also known as security ink or sympathetic ink, is a substance used for writing, which is invisible either on application or soon thereafter, and can later be made visible by some means, such as heat or ultraviolet light. Invisibl ...
to pay Madame Reubens-Chatte for her services, then takes Mewsette to his hideout in Notre Dame. He reveals his plan to ship her to America and tries to coerce her into a luggage crate. After seeing a portrait of Phtt, Mewsette escapes Meowrice and his sidekicks. She leads them on a chase to a bulldog, who injures Meowrice badly enough to put him out of action for six weeks. Meanwhile, his sycophants unsuccessfully comb the city for Mewsette and, shortly after arriving in Alaska, Jaune Tom and Robespierre strike
gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
. Now wealthy, the two cats hurry back to Paris. A disillusioned and homeless Mewsette wanders around Paris. She stops atop a bridge over the river, considering ending her misery. Just then, Meowrice and his cohorts ambush and capture her. She is taken to the Gare du Nord railway station, en route to a boat bound for America. All hope seems lost until Jaune Tom and Robespierre arrive. They have been aided by Madame Henrietta, who is outraged that Meoworice double-crossed her. Fighting inside the train, the three heroes defeat Meowrice and pack him into the packing crate as a surprise for Phtt. The film concludes with Mewsette, Jaune Tom, and Robespierre enjoying the high life in Paris that Mewsette was seeking when she left home.


Voice cast

*
Judy Garland Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. Possessing a strong contralto voice, she was celebrated for her emotional depth and versatility across film, stage, and concert performance. ...
as Mewsette, a beautiful white
Turkish Angora The Turkish Angora (, 'Ankara cat') is a breed of domestic cat. Turkish Angoras are one of the ancient, natural breeds of cat, having originated in central Anatolia ( Ankara Province in modern-day Turkey). The breed has been documented as ear ...
and Jaune Tom's girlfriend. *
Robert Goulet Robert Gérard Goulet (November 26, 1933 October 30, 2007) was an American‐Canadian singer and actor of French-Canadian ancestry. Goulet was born and raised in Lawrence, Massachusetts, until age 13, and then spent his formative years in Canad ...
as Jaune Tom, an orange
tabby cat A tabby cat, or simply tabby, is any domestic cat (''Felis catus'') with a Cat_coat_genetics#Tabbies , coat pattern distinguished by an M-shaped marking on its forehead, stripes by its eyes and across its cheeks, along its back, around its leg ...
. *
Red Buttons Red Buttons (born Aaron Chwatt; February 5, 1919 – July 13, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He won an Oscar and Golden Globe for '' Sayonara''. He was nominated for awards for his work such as ''Harlow'' (1965), '' They Shoot Ho ...
as Robespierre, a young black and white cat and Jaune Tom's friend and sidekick. *
Paul Frees Solomon Hersh Frees (June 22, 1920November 2, 1986), better known as Paul Frees, was an American actor, comedian, impressionist, and vaudevillian. He is known for his work on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Walter Lantz, Rankin/Bass and Walt Disney the ...
as Meowrice, a slim tuxedo cat. Frees also plays the voice of the cat from the railway station. * Hermione Gingold as Mme. Rubens-Chatte, Meowrice's "sister" and a
Persian cat The Persian cat, also known as the Persian Longhair, is a long-haired breed of cat characterised by a round face and short muzzle. The first documented ancestors of Persian cats might have been imported into Italy from Greater Khorasan, Khoras ...
. *
Morey Amsterdam Moritz Amsterdam (December 14, 1908 – October 28, 1996) was an American actor, comedian, writer and producer. Between 1948 and 1950, he hosted his own TV sitcom ''The Morey Amsterdam Show''. He played Buddy Sorrell on CBS's ''The Dick V ...
as
Narrator Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the ...
and Man on Ship. *
Mel Blanc Melvin Jerome Blanc (born Blank ; May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989) was an American voice actor and radio personality whose career spanned over 60 years. During the Golden Age of Radio, he provided character voices and vocal sound effects for come ...
as
Bulldog The Bulldog is a British breed of dog of mastiff type. It may also be known as the English Bulldog or British Bulldog. It is a stocky, muscular dog of medium size, with a large head, thick folds of skin around the face and shoulders and a rel ...
and additional voices. * The Mellomen as Meowrice's business partners (singing voices). *
Julie Bennett Julie Bennett (January 24, 1932 – March 31, 2020) was an American actress. Early years Bennett was born in Manhattan, New York, on January 24, 1932. By the time she was 18, she had been living in Hollywood, Los Angeles for so long that she was ...
and Joan Gardner as two ladies from
Provence Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which stretches from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the France–Italy border, Italian border to the east; it is bordered by the Mediterrane ...
. * Thurl Ravenscroft as Singing Hench Cat (uncredited).


Production

''Gay Purr-ee'' was the second and final feature film, following '' 1001 Arabian Nights'' with Mr. Magoo, produced by UPA (United Productions of America), a studio which had revolutionized animation during the 1950s by incorporating design and
limited animation Limited animation is a process in the overall technique of traditional animation that reuses frames of character animation. Early history The use of budget-cutting and time-saving animation measures in animation dates back to the earliest commerc ...
. The script for ''Gay Purr-ee'' was written by Dorothy Webster Jones and her husband,
Chuck Jones Charles Martin Jones (September 21, 1912 – February 22, 2002) was an American animator, painter, voice actor and filmmaker, best known for his work with Warner Bros. Cartoons on the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' series of shorts. He ...
, who was a veteran director for Warner Bros. Cartoons. One of the former animators from his Warner Bros. unit, Abe Levitow, directed the film. According to the production notes on the
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
edition, it was Garland who suggested that her '' Wizard of Oz'' songwriters,
Harold Arlen Harold Arlen (born Hyman Arluck; February 15, 1905 – April 23, 1986) was an American composer of popular music, who composed over 500 songs, a number of which have become known worldwide. In addition to composing the songs for the 1939 film ' ...
and E.Y. Harburg, should write and compose the songs for ''Gay Purr-ee''. A copyright entry for a song titled "Free at Last" made for the film exists, though it is not included in the final production. When Warner Bros. became the film's distributor, they discovered that Chuck Jones had worked on the film. After a long debate with management over the details of Jones' exclusivity agreement, the studio fired Jones in July 1962 and laid off his staff after they had finished their next cartoon. After Warner Bros. Cartoons was closed a year later, Jones hired his old unit for his first independent studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions.


Reception

''Gay Purr-ee'' was theatrically released on December 17, 1962.
Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though some ...
of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' felt the film's backgrounds were "good-natured tone and diverting" but felt "the characters almost pale by contrast". Philip K. Scheuer of the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' wrote: "The animation, in Technicolor, is inventive enough, leaning toward the economy of motion with which UPA revolutionized the cartoon movie (to say nothing of the TV commercial) and filling in the backgrounds with charming semi-abstractions in consonance with what might be called the modern French manner." '' Variety'' felt the film was "hampered by an uninspired storyline, but its otherwise slick and meticulous production values overshadow the weakness with ample artistry." A ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...
'' review felt that the film's subject matter was too sophisticated for an animated film, drily noting that its target audience seemed to be "the fey four-year-old of recherché taste".
Jerry Beck Jerry Beck (born February 9, 1955) is an American animation historian, author, blogger (person), blogger, and video producer. Beck wrote or edited several books on classic American animation and classic characters, including ''Looney Tunes and ...
, in his 2005 book ''The Animated Movie Guide'', felt ''Gay Purr-ee'' was "a good effort" and "unjustly underrated". Despite its "strong design sense" and voice cast, he agreed the animation quality is sometimes "on a television level or worse". Multiple analyses have noted its
modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
style, called "remarkably designed" in one such review. One analysis claims the modernist aesthetic has plot implications: though both urban and pastoral landscapes are equally "highlighted", the plot praises the triumph of "pastoral nature over corrupt urban technology".


Home media

''Gay Pur-ee'' was released on
VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...
and
LaserDisc LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...
in 1991 by
Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment, Inc. (doing business as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment; formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the American home video distribution ...
(under the Warner Bros. Family Entertainment label). The film was reissued on VHS in 1992 and 1994, then released on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
for the first time in 2003, and later also re-released on DVD in 2014 as a manufactured-on-demand (MOD) title from the Warner Archive Collection. It has been released in HD on
streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...
services. The film was released on
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
on August 29, 2023 from Warner Archive. At the time of the film's 1962 release, a full comic book version of the film was released that pretty much copied the film scene for scene; with only minor changes.


Soundtrack

On November 4, 2003, Rhino Handmade, a division of the
Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational entertainment and record label Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "Record label#M ...
, released the
soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...
on CD. This was identical to the 1962 LP version but contained 5 additional demo tracks. The demo tracks are performed by
Harold Arlen Harold Arlen (born Hyman Arluck; February 15, 1905 – April 23, 1986) was an American composer of popular music, who composed over 500 songs, a number of which have become known worldwide. In addition to composing the songs for the 1939 film ' ...
and E. Y. "Yip" Harburg, the composers of the songs for the film. They were also the primary songwriters for the music of '' The Wizard of Oz'', the 1939 Garland feature. Garland stated that the song "Little Drops of Rain" was one of her favorite songs. The CD track listing is as follows: # Overture – Judy Garland and Chorus (3:59) # Mewsette – Robert Goulet (3:09) # Take My Hand, Paree – Judy Garland (2:58) # Roses Red, Violets Blue – Judy Garland (2:02) # The Money Cat – Paul Frees and the Mellomen (2:17) # The Horse Won't Talk – Paul Frees (1:45) # Bubbles – Robert Goulet, Red Buttons, and the Mellomen (2:48) # Little Drops of Rain – Judy Garland (3:29) # Little Drops of Rain – Robert Goulet (1:30) # Portrait of Mewsette – Orchestra (3:30) # Paris is a Lonely Town – Judy Garland (4:15) # Mewsette Finale – Judy Garland, Robert Goulet, and Chorus (2:38) # Paris is a Lonely Town (variation) – Orchestra (1:58) # Roses Red, Violets Blue (demo) – Harold Arlen and E. Y. "Yip" Harburg (1:43) # The Money Cat (demo) – Harold Arlen and E. Y. "Yip" Harburg (2:10) # The Horse Won't Talk (demo) – Harold Arlen (3:46) # Little Drops of Rain (demo) – Harold Arlen (2:39) # Paris is a Lonely Town (demo) – Harold Arlen (2:46)


See also

* List of American films of 1962 * ''
The Aristocats ''The Aristocats'' is a 1970 American Animated film, animated comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by Buena Vista Distribution. It is directed by Wolfgang Reitherman and written by Ken Anderson (animator), Ken Ander ...
'' * '' A Cat in Paris''


References


Bibliography

* * *


External links

* * *
''Gay Purr-ee''
at
Don Markstein's Toonopedia Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

Archived
from the original on August 3, 2016.

{{Warner Bros. theatrical animated features 1962 American animated films 1960s English-language films 1960s children's animated films 1962 films 1962 children's films 1962 musical comedy films American children's animated comedy films American children's animated musical films Animated films about cats Animated films about talking animals Animated films about trains Animated films set in France Animated films set in Paris Animated films set in the 1890s Films directed by Abe Levitow Films set in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Films set in 1895 UPA films Warner Bros. animated films Warner Bros. films English-language musical comedy films Films with screenplays by Chuck Jones Films with songs by Yip Harburg Provence in fiction