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Gay Purr-ee is a 1962 American animation musical film produced by United Productions of America and released by Warner Bros. It features the voice of Judy Garland as Mewsette, a feline living in the French countryside wanting to go to Paris in her only animated-film role, as well as Robert Goulet 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 bomb. It is also the first animated feature film to be theatrically released by Warner Bros, and the second and final animated film by UPA.
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 Champs-Élysées, the Moulin 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 sanitary sewer. 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 painting of her to send to Phtt. Meowrice quietly writes a check with invisible ink 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. 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.
The script for Gay Purr-ee was written by Dorothy Webster Jones and her husband, Chuck Jones, 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 edition, it was Garland who suggested that her Wizard of Oz songwriters, Harold Arlen 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. Catalog of Copyright Entries 1961 Music July-Dec 3D Ser Vol 15 Pt 5 WebVoyage Record View 1
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.
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times 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 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 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". (2025). 9780803235120, University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803235120 Jerry Beck, 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 Modernism style, called "remarkably designed" in one such review.
One analysis claims the modernist film has plot implications: though both urban and pastoral landscapes are equally "highlighted", the plot praises the triumph of "pastoral nature over corrupt urban technology".
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.
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