The Great Rupert (1950)

(On TV, March 2020) Look at that — The Great Rupert is almost a movie made for me! Jimmy Durante and a pet squirrel rendered to life thanks to George Pal’s special-effects work! Admittedly a family film made to wow Christmastime audiences, The Great Rupert is rather cute and harmless. The plot has a hyper-intelligent squirrel helping out an impoverished family by redistributing a cache of money stashed by a miserly neighbour. Part of the film’s attraction is Pal’s animation work—this was his first film as a producer, right before Destination Moon made him the first Science Fiction/Fantasy film mogul. The stop-motion special effects are charmingly quaint by now, and there’s Durante’s distinctive comic styling (even if subdued and scarce) to bring a touch of further interest to the rest. Now in the public domain, it’s not difficult to find a copy of the film to stream—although getting a high-quality one may require more work. The Great Rupert is not that good of a movie, but it does have a few distinctions going for it—I mean, there aren’t that many movies featuring squirrels as main characters.