"You've never seen anything like it!"
May 31, 2014 7:14 PM   Subscribe

Bill and Coo Plot: 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!

Also at The Internet Archive

From The Paris Review, and an overview at TCM

clip:A Tour Of Chirpendale

Dr. Strangefilm Case #003: Bill and Coo
What’s that? You’ve never heard of Bill and Coo? Well, the pair were the eponymous stars of a 1948 feature film that earned its producer, Hollywood documentarian Ken Murray, an honorary Academy Award for its “novel and entertaining use of” the movie medium. The entertaining part of that claim is one we’ll look into shortly, but no one can argue with “novel.” After all, how many feature-length dramas have ever been shot on a 30- by 15-foot set with an all-bird cast?
posted by the man of twists and turns (7 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
I heard about this film from Bird Talk in 1989. Finally remembered to look it up a few years ago. It really is a charming movie.
posted by Calzephyr at 8:52 PM on May 31, 2014


Silly, but fun.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:56 PM on May 31, 2014


Love it... this is the perfect ending to a day of birding.
I hope this film spills over into my dreams tonight.
posted by quazichimp at 11:48 PM on May 31, 2014


I just dropped in to say that I saw "Bill and Coo" on TV. Back in the 1970s, the golden age of syndication, you could see literally *anything* on the 4:00 movie. Silent movies? Subtitled Truffaut movies? Movies starring birds?
posted by acrasis at 8:12 AM on June 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


An hour! A whole hour of this!

What on earth happened to American culture after the war? I still don't understand it. How did the late 40s and 50s become so... infantile?
posted by bicyclefish at 9:33 AM on June 1, 2014


So once again a crow is typecast as the villain instead of a more ecologically plausible hawk, falcon, or owl (and how about mammalian villains: cats, dogs, foxes, raccoons-- all would love to have a small bird snack).
posted by Pyry at 10:48 AM on June 1, 2014


Dance bird. DANCE!
posted by Halogenhat at 2:41 PM on June 1, 2014


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