Gay Purr-ee (1962)

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Gay Purr-ee Movie Review

Gay Purr-ee is a 1962 animated musical film from Warner Bros. starring Judy Garland. It is a very disappointing, frankly quite weak movie.

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“Boys, if you ever marry, marry for love… of money.“

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The plot is nothing special and is quite ordinary and at times even dull. Now obviously Disney’s ‘The Aristocats’ was influenced by this movie and in some plot points it might even be called a rip-off. But to me the aforementioned movie is much better with better characters, animation and music. The plot is weak in both movies and here it tried to have many different things in it, but ultimately doesn’t succeed in either of them.

The characters are quite weak. Mewsette is your typical female love interest and Jaune Tom is likable, yet forgettable. Robespierre is a typical, but solid sidekick and he is actually better developed and more memorable than the aforementioned two. Meowrice is actually a quite capable villain, but even he disappointed me near the end. His character doesn’t work because Paul Frees gave an infuriatingly weak performance and all of the others are weak as well. They made the movie look cheap along with its animation.

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Yes, the animation is cheap here and yes, it does look unprofessional and if it was still in the development process. However, I still admired its aesthetics because some of the imagery is excellent and some of the designs were great. The scene with the parody of major works from major artists definitely felt like a detour in terms of storytelling, but in terms of the animation, it was quite inspired and even artistic. I just wish that the film got a polished look and it would have been great, but this way it just felt unfinished and unprofessional.

Gay Purr-ee features some quite mediocre musical numbers. As a musical, it doesn’t succeed even though it has a couple of solid songs in it. The Overture is a quite solid opening for the movie and Mewsette is pretty solid as well. Take My Hand, Paree is catchy and in tone it is fittingly French to accompany its setting. Little Drops of Rain is emotional and serves the story well. But all of the other numbers are very weak and even poor in some instances.

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Gay Purr-ee is a problematic movie because it is just too slow paced to become engaging and it was even boring and felt overlong despite its short running time and that is never a good sign. The drama and the villainy was solid, but the action was dull and the entire third act was too cartoony. In the end, it is a further proof of Disney’s dominance during the 60s and how Warner Bros’ unfortunately could not compete and this flick is a testament to that.

Gay Purr-ee has a couple of solid musical numbers, some good scenes and a couple of inspired animated moments, but the overall animation, although obviously featuring solid designs and scenery, felt unfinished and cheap, the characters are not the greatest, the voice acting is quite poor and most of the songs were weak leading to a pretty weak Warner Bros. animated effort.