As a long-time animation fan, I sincerely believed I had never seen this film before recently obtaining a video, then a "flashback" much like a recovered, repressed memory hit during the song "Bubbles"..... So, I saw the movie somewhere in my childhood, but have no fond memories or nostalgia about it.
Part of me sincerely wants to like this film. There's something in it for young and old, the music is superbly rendered, and the plot will appeal to younger children without being insulting to their intellect, though it may be a bit much for, say, those under eight or ten. And the characters have Chuck Jones' DNA all over them--anyone familiar with his later work with Warner Brothers, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," etc., will see all the signature expressions, facial builds, movement flow, etc.
That being said, however, the picture has several problems. Don't let Warner Brothers logos fool you; this is a UPA animation project, and it entails all the grainy, "low-budget" feel UPA was famous for (think Mr. Magoo or early Japanese anime). It works in its own novel way in this film, but anyone who has grown up in the CGI era that has brought us The Simpsons, Wall-E, Lilo and Stitch, Cars, Up, Tangled, Wallace & Gromit, Beauty & The Beast, etc. is likely to look at this and scream "Are they kidding?" Furthermore, although the musical talent was excellent in this picture (even on low-tech videotape, the songs come off superbly rendered, among the best animation has ever offered), the pacing of the movie and its music hearkens right back to the movies of the Fifties, Forties, and earlier where the movies were musicals that served more as vehicles for the musical soundtrack, not the other way around. If you go into this expecting the big musical where they continually interrupt the story to sing another song, you'll do fine, but many contemporary children may get fidgety and think "get on with it already!"
All told, I don't want to discourage this film. But I suggest that any viewer, over fifty years after it was made, consider the cinematic perspective of the time in which it was released, just as one should with any other decades-old film, animated or not.
Part of me sincerely wants to like this film. There's something in it for young and old, the music is superbly rendered, and the plot will appeal to younger children without being insulting to their intellect, though it may be a bit much for, say, those under eight or ten. And the characters have Chuck Jones' DNA all over them--anyone familiar with his later work with Warner Brothers, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," etc., will see all the signature expressions, facial builds, movement flow, etc.
That being said, however, the picture has several problems. Don't let Warner Brothers logos fool you; this is a UPA animation project, and it entails all the grainy, "low-budget" feel UPA was famous for (think Mr. Magoo or early Japanese anime). It works in its own novel way in this film, but anyone who has grown up in the CGI era that has brought us The Simpsons, Wall-E, Lilo and Stitch, Cars, Up, Tangled, Wallace & Gromit, Beauty & The Beast, etc. is likely to look at this and scream "Are they kidding?" Furthermore, although the musical talent was excellent in this picture (even on low-tech videotape, the songs come off superbly rendered, among the best animation has ever offered), the pacing of the movie and its music hearkens right back to the movies of the Fifties, Forties, and earlier where the movies were musicals that served more as vehicles for the musical soundtrack, not the other way around. If you go into this expecting the big musical where they continually interrupt the story to sing another song, you'll do fine, but many contemporary children may get fidgety and think "get on with it already!"
All told, I don't want to discourage this film. But I suggest that any viewer, over fifty years after it was made, consider the cinematic perspective of the time in which it was released, just as one should with any other decades-old film, animated or not.