I really love classic cartoons. Even though I'm only 31, I grew up watching a lot of older stuff, especially Looney Toons and Scooby Doo. But one thing in particular I love, that somehow isn't super well known despite being written by Chuck Jones and starring Judy Garland & Robert Goulet, is a tiny minimalistic animated feature from 1962 titled "Gay Purr-ee". It occasionally played on Cartoon Networks Cartoon Theatre (which, now that I've mentioned it, I should do a post on at some point I suppose) but I know I saw it long before that, I just can't really remember where or when. But hey, that's why the blog is called what it's called, right? Seriously though, some of these things - specifically the ones where I can't pinpoint its introduction into my life - almost seem like they've been a part of my life since I was born and given how old this movie is that could theoretically be the case for once.
Either way, it's an absolutely beautiful looking film that, thankfully, hasn't been entirely forgotten by time. It was actually more written by Jones's wife, Dorothy Webster Jones, while Chuck bankrolled the thing, producing it in direct violation of his exclusive contract with Warner Brothers (since he had to moonlight for UPA in order to do this), which really says a lot to me about how much he believed in it and probably how much he knew his wife believed in it. He wanted to get it made for her. That's commitment right there, folks. Gotta love it. It's also a musical, which I love, as Garland herself brought on Wizard of Oz songwriters Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg. The funniest part is that in the end, it wound up being Warner Brothers who picked up the film for distribution, thusly discovering Jones's participation and, after a long debate with management over the terms of his exclusivity, fired Jones and his staff in July 1962 after they'd completed their final cartoon for the studio.
Here is a man who lost not only his own job, but the jobs of countless others (you can debate all you want on whether that's morally correct or not, I don't care to get into it myself), all for the sake of producing a singular movie, likely for his wife, that wound up becoming a box office flop. After all the hard work, after all he risked to lose, and wound up losing, the movie bombed hard. But Jones believed in it enough to take the gamble, and that's a level of commitment not only to his wife but also to the work that I can really admire. The film currently holds an 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, if you're curious, and despite its box office bomb was in fact praised by critics, especially Garland's performance. It is also slightly notable in being not only Garland's only animated film role, but also Goulet's first feature film role.
The style, visually, is beautiful. It's all watercolors and minimal textures, and the animation, especially for the time, was very clean, very sharp, very crisp and fluid. It almost looks like a classical painting come to life. Believe me when I say there is absolutely nothing else out there that looks like this, it truly is, aesthetically, one of a kind. The film follows a cat named Mewsette who, after learning about Paris, decides she wants to spend her life there. So she runs away from the farm where she lives to be in Paris, while her admirer, a tomcat named Jaune Tom - along with his friend Robespierre - chase after her so he can finally capture her heart. However, once in Paris she meets another cat named Meowrice, a rather shady character who, thanks to his charm overshadowing his sleaziness, befriends Mewsette and wants to make her a star by bringing her into, what essentially, a cat brothel so he can groom her to be a mail order bride for a rich American cat. I know, it sounds...out there.
But somehow it works. It's beautiful and sad and full of love. Love for a new life, love for a city, love for one another. Are Mewsette's original reasons for heading to Paris somewhat impulsive and romanticized? Certainly, but Paris is the city of love! But it's a film that doesn't shy away from being about love, overtly so even. Hell, the first song in the movie is about how much Jaune Tom loves Mewsette! It's a love letter about love, and a love letter to itself, because honestly, this thing had no right getting made. It was much too weird and had much too niche an audience, so the mere fact it exists at all is incredible, and it therefore has every right to love itself for doing so.
And as someone who truly commits to projects, commits to seeing them through to the end, I am inspired by Jones's audacity to risk everything to have it made. Whether it was done for his wife or not remains to be seen (though if it was that's even more romantic) but the fact that he believed it was important enough to gamble his whole studio on it is just a level of commitment to a work of art that I hope I can one day make. I just hope mine works out better than his did. I love this film. It taught me a true appreciation for animation styles that don't look "accessible" or "modern" and was a big reason I grew up loving musicals, but there's also something else, something I haven't talked about, and that's the fact that this movie is - despite it being about two heterosexual cats - unabashedly queer.
When I was growing up, I had a uncle who was a professional dancer and lived in Paris with his boyfriend. Doesn't get much gayer than that, folks. And while he died when I was only maybe 5 or so, I know that that's what this film reminds me of, is him. And myself. Being the only other queer person in my family (at least to my knowledge), this film was almost a love letter to the admittance of accepting who you are and what you want, which is love. We all want love, and sometimes we have to go through absolute hell just to discover how to attain it. Mewsette doesn't run away to Paris because she wants some sort of fantastical life, it's because she falls in love with the city proper, and Jaune Tom follows her, because he loves her and wants to give her a perfect life, and Robespierre follows him because they're best friends and he wants to make sure his friend stays safe.
This movie is love personified. Hell, the word gay is right in the title for christ sakes, and while the usage in 1962 may have been more or less not what it means today, I still like to view that as a somewhat ironic coincidence. Plus, I mean, it's a musical. That's pretty gay, you guys. This film isn't life altering in many ways, but it certainly is a favorite and more than anything, if nothing else, taught me that it's okay to look for love in places you least expect, from people you least expect. But, sadly, try as you might, you likely won't find it. Especially not from the people you wish you could find it from. Search high, search low, for however long you want to, I promise you it's never real. It's never true. We all search for love, selfless and nonjudgmental love. Rarely though, in real life, does this ever result in a happy ending.
I suppose that's why we have movies.
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