Bill and Coo - Tour of Chirpendale

Witness Dean Rieser's masterpiece BILL AND COO (1948)! An all-bird cast (trained by George Burton) acts out a story involving Taxi Driver Bill Singer wooing his beloved Coo whilst fighting off a parakeet-devouring crow! This clip features a tour of the town of Chirpendale and its inhabitants. Oddly enough, the film won a special Academy award "In which artistry and patience blended in a novel and entertaining use of the medium of motion pictures". Go figure.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• birds
• weird
• all
• animal
• cast
• strange
• parrots
• crows
• kid
• matinee
• film
• academy
• award
• winner
• oscar
• trained
• miniature
• set
• animals
• in
• people
• clothing
• ken
• murray

[LayneStanley121191]

where did you get the movie footage from?

[DrowningKittens]

The movie Bill and Coo - which is available on a few "budget compilation" DVDs. I believe mine has this movie and a Lassie movie on it.

[DebbieJolie1]

What a cute story! This took a great dela of work with the birds, as it took me 40 minutes for 1 Christmas picture! In 1948, I wonder how many actually got to see it?

Where is part 2 with the Black Menace?

[SheriCambly]

Simply adorable!

[vigwig]

Cutest film ever!

[Vagrarian]

Crikey, I have vague memories of seeing this when I was very very very young. I remember a chorus of birds singing while two went up in a balloon, and a bird running down the road, repeating "The crow's coming!" over and over. Amazing, I almost given it up as a dream or something, but here it is!

[dynagravitomagnetic]

When training these birds, the artist had been in a cast with his arms free. I think he had been in an accident or something. This was from a preamble before the feature was shown on T.V. in 1971

[SteveCarras]

WIkipiedia has a link to the site. The costar Elizabeth Walters, narrates it, anyone know anything else about her? Very sweet and catchy Disney-like orchestration.. [The birds were treated more humanely than perhaps thought, with the trianing demonstrated at the start!]

[SteveCarras]

@SunnyRainbowHeart

And it's the PRODUCER as well, Ken Murray. Warner Bros.actually made something like this with some ot their animators, only with monkeys around this time:

"Orange Blossoms for Violet".

[SteveCarras]

Long time since I saw this...and first time in color. Granted, "Trucolor" [this being Republic-as in Bob Clampett's last film, and the only RKO animation, "You're a Grand Old Nag",1946], isn't the best, but it's the first time that I remember seeing this color version. It lasts only 61 minutes..

[GreenGabber1]

You can buy this film on E Bay! Jimmy the Crow (The Black Menace) was the biggest star! Look it up! He was even in the wizard of Oz!!!!

[HoraceDJones1]

Emminent critic and journalist James Agee described "Bill and Coo" as being "by conservative estimate, the God- damndest thing ever seen."