by Joseph Tarcea (Author)
George Pal's The Great Rupert, a beautiful but underwhelming film that speaks a lot about the adored producer, is the subject of an exercise in aggressive promotion. Rupert is a little comedy that is a little lackluster in the magic department and as philosophically disjointed as earlier Pal movies, but it was made with the same essential creative talent as his ground-breaking follow-up Destination Moon. The character known as "Rupert" is a trained squirrel who performs jigs for Jimmy Conlin, a beloved Preston Sturges regular, while dressed in a Scottish garb. Clearly, Rupert is a miracle on par with the singing frog from the Chuck Jones cartoon, but agent Chick Chandler isn't at all moved. This absurdity leads us to believe that Rupert may have initially played a more significant role.