La merveilleuse aventure

When I was just a young boy, my uncle took my cousins, my brother and I to see The Great Rupert at an outdoor drive-in. I was nine years old, and Rupert became one of my greatest childhood memories. I thought about the movie during the past 40-50 years...when my daughter was born, I wished she could have seen it...and when my grandson was born, I wished the same for him.

My daughter has been on the internet for years, my wife and I only the past year or so. Recently I decided to see if I could find out if there was a video of The Great Rupert...and would you believe it - there was! I ordered it right away.

My wife and I, my daughter and my grandson watched it together, and although the "special effects" are certainly not "Star Wars"...the story is still heart warming. I recommend the movie for kids of all ages.

The Great Rupert besides being the first feature film of master Puppetooner George Pal is a pleasant, gentle, and innocuous family comedy about the innocent antics of a very smart squirrel and the changes he wreaks in a neighborhood. Ironically enough no one knows he's the responsible party right up to the highest levels of government.

Rupert who is an animated squirrel courtesy of George Pal is a trained rodent by animal trainer Jimmy Conlin, but who can't sell the act to agent Chick Chandler and because of that he's evicted for lack of rent payment by landlord Frank Orth.

As luck would have it another group of vaudevillians, the family Amendola which consists of Jimmy Durante, wife Queenie Smith and their daughter Terry Moore. Mainly because Orth's son develops big eyes for Terry, he rents them the place without a deposit nor hopes of getting one.

But Rupert returns to his nest in the roof of that house and he causes miser Orth's fortune to fall upon the Amendolas, it's where the old skinflint stores his loot because he doesn't trust banks. Remember we were not too far from the Depression when many banks failed.

I can't go any farther, but suffice it to say it all works out financially and romantically in the end. Along the way Jimmy Durante provides us with a couple of numbers in his unique style.

The film is timeless in its humor, but it does show the age of the fashions involved. It probably could be remade today, I can see Steve Martin in Jimmy Durante's part.

But not with the Schnozz.

An odd little movie with a nice "b" cast (Besides Durante, there's Tom Drake from "Meet Me in St. Louis," Terry Moore from "Mighty Joe Young") and a truly original comic plot-twist as the premise. A cute puppet squirrel makes this a fun movie for young children, and I recommend it for the parents too, if you like obscure old movies -- you really can't predict where this story is headed.

The Great Rupert is a funny, heart-warming tale of prayer and faith, poverty and philanthropy, in which hard-hearted greed gets its comeuppance and everything turns out for the best. And a cute little dancing squirrel is the agent driving the action behind the scenes!

I ran across this oddity in the video store which I assume would find most of its fans from those who collect George Pal films. He's the famous science fiction and fantasy producer/director (The Time Machine, War of the Worlds) who patented a technique known as Puppetoon visually similar to today's Claymation. It stars the great Jimmy Durante, and B-movie favorites Terry Moore (the original Mighty Joe Young), and Tom Drake. Disney animation had its pulse on the public and other studios were looking to cash in too via live action. So why not a live action film with a very talented squirrel? Why not? It's a family film, fun, original, and quite different. The squirrel looks a little like the contemporary mice in the "The Mouse and The Motorcyle" and the Jim Henson film "The Witches." This film however always has its feet firmly planted in reality with the squirrel seeming more like an organ grinder's monkey than human. This gives the animal more vulnerablity. It also gives the human race more responsiblity to take proper care of him and any animal or pet who brings us pleasure and happiness from their presence in our lives. It's also a film that is hard to resist from the film's first shot. Whereas most films wait too long into a film to show the audience what it came to see (Superman flying, ET talking, Aliens killing, etc...), The Great Rupert is introduced dancing in the very first scene! Good decision, because once you see him, you gotta love him!