A year before the release of the X-rated Fritz the Cat, American moviegoers were subjected to the strangeness of the PG-rated musical Shinbone Alley – a film too grown-up for the kiddies who normally enjoy animated features but too juvenile for the adults capable of understanding the sexualised subject matter.
The main characters – poetry-writing cockroach Archy and slutty alley cat Mehitabel – first appeared in 1916 in whimsical newspaper columns written by Don Marquis.
Eddie Bracken and Carol Channing performed on a comedy/musical concept album titled Archy and Mehitabel in 1954 and the album was then adapted into a 1957 Broadway musical, titled Shinbone Alley, starring Bracken and Eartha Kitt (replacing Channing).
This animated feature reunited Bracken and Channing.
The film includes a human poet who commits suicide and is reincarnated as a cockroach (Archy); an unrequited-love story involving creatures from different species; a slutty heroine who contemplates drowning her children because they’re inconvenient; a proposed insect revolution against humanity, and Shakespeare performed as beat poetry.
In John Carradine’s big sequence, his character tries to seduce Channing’s character by browbeating her into becoming an actress, resulting in a hideous scene of the two frog-voiced actors brutalising lines from Romeo and Juliet while scatting them to a jazz beat.
In another dissonant bit, Bracken’s character has a sex dream about Channing’s character that’s illustrated by still photographs with cat heads superimposed over the bodies of human women.
The tunes are croaked and screeched by performers with ghastly singing voices, with the most entertaining singing coming from Alan Reed, best known as the voice of Fred Flintstone.
Mehitabel (voice)
Carol Channing Archy (voice)
Eddie Bracken Big Bill (voice)
Alan Reed Tyrone T. Tattersall (voice)
John Carradine Freddie the Rat / Prissy Cat (voice)
Hal Smith Penelope the Fat Cat / Ladybugs of the Evening (voice)
Joan Gerber Beatnik Spider (voice)
Sal Delano Rosie the Cat (voice)
Ken Sansom
Director
John Wilson
David Detiege
Video
You May Also Like
Satan Bug, The (1965) Adapted from an Alistair MacLean novel of the same name, The Satan Bug concerns Station 3,…
Super Dude (1974) This low-budget but fast-moving and flashy Blaxploitation film was released in some markets as Hangup. Heroic…
Sparkle (1976) Beginning in 1958, Sparkle tells the (fictional) story of three singing sisters who climb up from the…
Solaris (1972) Based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem, Solaris is a film that takes on some very big issues:…
Spencer's Mountain (1963) Spencer's Mountain opens with America The Beautiful and throughout the film, you hear God Bless America, The Star-Spangled Banner, Shall We…
Single Room Furnished (1966) Ironically, Jayne Mansfield tackled her first straight dramatic role in her final film here playing a…
Clockwork Orange, A (1971) Set in Britain in the near future, A Clockwork Orange relates the adventures of a working-class teenage delinquent…
Stitch In Time, A (1963) Norman Pitkin (Norman Wisdom) and Mr Grimsdale (Edward Chapman) are partners in a butcher's shop, which…
