The Great Rupert

Rosalinda Amendola, the daughter of happy but impoverished former acrobats is in love with the boy next door, aspiring composer Pete Dingle. Though Pete's parents are wealthy, his miserly father Frank insists on hiding his money from his investments in the wall of their family home.

The situation changes when Joe Mahoney, a vaudeville performer who has fallen on hard times, has to leave his best friend and stage companion, Rupert a dancing squirrel, in Frank and Rosalinda's town where he will have to fend for himself with the other squirrels and live in a tree. Unsatisfied with tree life, Rupert gains access to the Dingle home and unbeknownst to Frank, has his bed in Frank's hidden cache of money. Rupert decides to clear room in his domicile by throwing Frank's money through a hole so that it floats down into the Amendola household who think the money has come from Heaven in answer to Mrs. Amendola's prayers.

Attracted by Louie Amendola not only paying his debts, but helping all the needy businesses of the town, the FBI, IRS and local police converge on the House of Amendola to discover the source of the family's wealth.

• Jimmy Durante as Mr. Louie Amendola
• Terry Moore as Rosalinda Amendola
• Tom Drake as Peter 'Pete' Dingle
• Frank Orth as Mr. Frank Dingle
• Sara Haden as Mrs. Katie Dingle
• Queenie Smith as Mrs. Amendola
• Chick Chandler as Phil Davis
• Jimmy Conlin as Joe Mahoney
• Rupert, an animated squirrel
• Hugh Sanders as Mulligan
• Don Beddoe as Mr. Haggerty
• Candy Candido as Molineri - Florist
• Clancy Cooper as Police Lt. Saunders
• Harold Goodwin as Callahan - F.B.I. Man
• Frank Cady as Mr. Taney - Tax Investigator
• Irving Pichel as Puzzled Pedestrian (uncredited)

In the 1940s George Pal made his reputation in Hollywood by producing animated shorts. As costs rose he found it unprofitable so moved into commercials for a few years while planning on going into feature production. In 1949 he convinced the independent Eagle-Lion Films to co-finance his own two-picture deal, with him putting up half of the money. Part of the finance came from Peter Rathvorn and Floyd Odlum, who used to run RKO. The movies would be The Great Rupert and Destination Moon.[2][3]

The film was originally known as Money, Money, Money and was based on a story by Ted Allen purchased by George Pal in June 1948.[4] It was adapted by Laszlo Vadnay. The title changed to Rupert II. Filming started at General Service Studio on 20 June 1949.[5][6]

At one stage the film was called The Great Amandola.[7] George Pal's stop-motion animation used in creating the illusion of a dancing squirrel (Rupert) was so realistic that he received many inquiries as to where he located a trained squirrel.

In 1999, Arnold Leibovit Entertainment re-released the film on DVD.

In 2003, 20th Century Fox and Legend Films revived the (now) public domain film with a colorized special edition, under the title A Christmas Wish. For that release, Terry Moore provided an audio commentary track.

• List of films in the public domain in the United States

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Great Rupert.

• The Great Rupert at IMDb
• The Great Rupert is available for free download at the Internet Archive
• The Great Rupert at AllMovie
• The Great Rupert at the TCM Movie Database