“What the fuck is this!?!” was my friend’s first response when I showed him Dean Riesner’s Bill & Coo (1948) back in 2010. It seems to be the reaction most people have to this film. On an intellectual level, I agree, “what is this? It won an honorary Oscar?” Still, George Burton’s birds are closer to my heart than I should probably admit.
I don’t know when I saw it first, but I had to have been very young. In 2004 I remember going to Movies Unlimited in the Great North East when they were selling off all of their VHS. That’s when I saw a copy of Bill & Coo. Looking at it’s cover (I still own this copy) I remembered it somehow. Needless to say I bought it, along with To Sleep With Anger, The Cars That Ate Paris and Blank Generation (I got some looks at the register). Once I was home I watched it. It was like a flood gate had burst. I had seen this weird bird movie before. I was transported to a safe and loving place of innocence. That hasn’t changed no matter how many viewings later. But I still have no clue as to why? Maybe I am one of those damn birds reincarnated?
