Bill and Coo (1948)

The feathered residents of Chirpendale are terrorized by an evil black crow by the name of "The Black Menace". But to the citizen's rescue comes a brave young taxi puller named Bill!

Director:

Dean Riesner

Writers:

Royal Foster (screenplay), Dean Riesner (screenplay)

Stars:

Burton's Birds, Jimmy the Crow, George Burton

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview:
Burton's Birds	...	Bill / Coo (as George Burton's Love Birds)
Jimmy the Crow	...	The Black Menace (as Curley Twiford's Jimmy the Crow)
George Burton	...	George Burton (Prologue)
Elizabeth Walters	...	Elizabeth Walters (Prologue)
Ken Murray	...	Ken Murray (Prologue)

Storyline

Welcome to Chirpendale. There's plenty of parking space, plus it has everything: a bar where bird citizens can drink junebug sundaes and listen to jazzy music. But the bird citizens are terrorized by an evil raven called "The Black Menace", but a pluck young bird named Bill Singer, who's a taxi driver by day, comes to the aid of a damsel in distress, Coo, who's trapped in a fire. And soon the circus comes to town, Bill and Coo get box perches and witness ferocious feats and even laugh along with Cannonball Twitcher on an out of control motorcycle! But soon The Black Menace returns, and Bill and the rest of the citizens put together a plan to put him away for good.

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Plot Keywords:

bird | taxi | motorcycle | fire | raven | 

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Genres:

Musical | Family | Fantasy

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Certificate:

Approved

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film holds the world record for the smallest film set. It was filmed entirely in a model village mounted on a table measuring 30 ft x 15 ft (9.14 m x 4.57 m). The success of the film was rewarded with an Honorary Academy Award in 1948.

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Connections

References Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)

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Soundtracks

Wiener Blut, Op. 354 (Vienna Blood)
(uncredited)
Music by Johann Strauss
Played when Tilly is lowered to the ground

User Reviews

An interesting one-of-a-kind film...but hard to watch for the full 60 minutes

Technically, "Bill and Coo" is a pretty amazing film. After all, the picture stars a whole lot of adorable birds (mostly lovebirds but some parakeets and other birds) doing a lot of adorable tricks...and making the film must have been very slow and difficult because of this. But, it also reminds me of a bird show at the zoo...interesting but not something you'd want to see for an hour. Additionally, the narration is often a bit heavy-handed and I am sure calling the villain 'The Black Menace' won't go over very well in this more politically correct world. The bottom line is that the film is cute to see...at least clips of the film. If you can actually hold on for the hour without losing interest, I applaud you. For me, the novelty quickly wore off--much like those god- awful shorts they made back in the 1930s with dogs dressed as people and with terrible voice-overs. A little bit goes a long, long way.

If you are curious about seeing the film, it can be downloaded for free from archive.org--a site often linked to many of the films on IMDb.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 March 1948 (USA)

Also Known As:

Bill & Coo

Company Credits

Production Co:

Ken Murray Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

61 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Color (Trucolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1