Review of Gay Purr-ee

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.