El gato con botas

A Mexican retelling of the Puss 'n' Boots fairytale, this is handled quite reasonably with a sufficient budget to do the milieu justice. If you can get over the main character's costume then I don't think you'll have much problem with the rest of it. Plenty of colourful costumes, scheming characters and cheesy action scenes are the highlight here, with a random giant rooster thrown in for comedy value. Expect THE SINGING RINGING TREE-style quality and you'll "get" it.

Like many Baby Boomers, I saw this picture in a Children's Matinee in the sixties. It was bad then, it's bad now. However, I enjoy it for the nostalgia of the times, namely my recollections of seeing family oriented movies on a large screen.

I did some research on K. Gordon Murray and a competing company, Childhood Productions run by Barry Yellin. Both men tried to corner the kiddie matinee venue in the sixties. As the market began to dry up, they both formed secondary companies that released X-rated porno films! Quite a product line, wasn't it? Murray got into serious tax troubles with the IRS in the seventies. They literally hounded him to death! He died of a heart attack while they were investigating him. The IRS seized his assets including the 35mm color dupe negatives he was using to strike the release prints. For all I know, they may still have them. AIP purchased syndication rights from both Murray and Yellin before they folded and distributed 16mm copies on television. The rights eventually returned to the foreign production companies.

Richard W. Haines, author "Technicolor Movies"

There's a music store near my home that has a video-rental wall full of "Psychotronic" like films... the clerk told my wife and I that if we wanted something that really was screwed up, we should rent Puss 'n' Boots.

Welll... the guy was correct, but it wasn't what we were looking for. The dubbing is absolutely horrid; the voices are incredibly grating, and the whole experience is akin to psychological torture. My wife left the room about 30 minutes in, and I made it to the end, barely.

This movie really doesn't lend itself well to MST3K type drubbing, nor is it amusingly wacked-out. It's a horrible experience. There is no redeeming quality in it, and it's a sin that the person responsible for the dub attempted to foist this upon the children of America (granted, maybe the youth of America can stand this better than an adult, but there's no excuse for passing off cut-rate work just because the intended audience isn't conscious of quality yet.)

Note that my comments refer only to the English version- I have no experience with the original language version; it could be fantastic for all I know...

Whoa! I have seen some bizarre movies, but Roberto Rodríguez's adaptation of Charles Perrault's story is in a class all by itself! "El gato con botas" comes across as one giant acid trip. Exaggerated acting, sped-up scenes, and occasional singing make this one of the weirdest movies out there. While watching it I made a few comments like the characters on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" make; Mike and the 'bots would've had a field day with this movie.

I assume that the characters are supposed to represent the detachment between the social classes in Mexico - the royals and aristocracy are white while the peasants are swarthy - but seriously, the whole movie comes across as a joke. Nevertheless, they probably had fun filming it, and you'll probably enjoy making MST3K-style cracks at it. The challenge will be finding a copy.

A great movie but not by itself, just a godd memory of my grand grand mother playing the role of the Lady of time