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.
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.