Cast:
Rod Taylor (Pongo), Lisa Daniels and Cate Bauer (Perdita), Betty Lou Gerson (Cruella de Vil / Miss Birdwell), Ben Wright (Roger Radcliffe), Lisa Davis (Anita Radcliffe), Frederick Worlock (Horace Baddun / Inspector Graves), J. Pat O'Malley (Jasper Baddun / Colonel), Martha Wentworth (Nanny / Queenie / Lucy the White Goose), Thurl Ravenscroft (Captain), David Frankham (Sergeant Tibbs), Mimi Gibson (Lucky), Barbara Beaird (Rolly), Mickey Maga (Patch), Sandra Abbott (Penny), Tudor Owen (Old Towser), George Pelling (Danny), and Junius Matthews (Scottie) Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman (#250 - The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, #598 - The Rescuers, #660 - Sleeping Beauty), Clyde Geronimi (#178 - Peter Pan, #373 - Cinderella, #511 - The Three Caballeros, #660, and #683 - Alice in Wonderland) and Hamilton Luske (#178, #373, #683)
Review:
By the 1950s, Walt Disney and his film studio would enter a time of transition. The animation studio had done six package films from 1942 to 1949 before returning with Cinderella (1950). That same year, Disney would get behind their first live-action effort with Treasure Island, having experimented with a mix of live-action and animation with previous features such as Song of the South (1946). Disney had further ideas beyond films, such as the theme park built in Anaheim, California, a park that bears his name opened to the public in 1955. Sleeping Beauty (1959) was the first animated film in Super Technirama 70 widescreen. The high costs of the film did not help make it a success on release, and Disney had thoughts about closing down the animation department due to costs (the aforementioned Beauty film was made for $6 million, while the resulting Dalmatian film was made for $3.6 million). The movie is an adaptation of The Hundred and One Dalmatians, a 1956 children's novel by Dodie Smith. Disney had bought the rights to doing a film on the novel in 1957 (Smith, a Dalmatian owner, had apparently wrote the book with a secret hope that Disney would make a film of it, as noted in correspondences to Disney). Bill Peet was tasked to write the story for the film. Peet had been involved in the story department for several Disney films since Pinocchio (1940), having started his work at the Disney studio as an "in-betweener" in making up frames of drawings on animated shorts. He was also involved in the character development stage for what became Cruella de Vil along with developing all of the storyboards for the film (when generally an animated film had numerous storyboard artists) while directing the recording of the voices. There was one method to cut costs. This was the first film to be made entirely with a copying technology utilized by the Xerox Corporation. So yes, one took a Xerox camera to get drawings by animators directly to animation cels without needing to do the inking process (no drawings needed to be painted over); the Xerox process had been done in a few small scenes prior to this film. Ken Anderson, a fellow loyal employee of Disney for decades, was art director and production designer on this film. This was the 17th animated film by Disney and the first of three released in the 1960s, aided by the success seen by this film with audiences. A live-action remake was done in 1996, which in turn inspired a sequel four years later and a live-action "prequel" in 2021.
Honestly, the reason I hadn't covered many Disney films over the past few years is because I wanted to make it seem quite special to do one from the studio, which has released 61 animated feature films since 1937. One Hundred and One Dalmatians isn't the best film released by the Disney studio of its era, but it clearly is a charmer. It certainly has conventional techniques in its storytelling that make its 79 minute runtime an interesting presence in the Disney lexicon. Disney did not care much for the look of the film in art because he thought it lost the "fantasy" element, since the line drawings were now being printed on a separate animation cel right before it was laid over the background. But it makes sense for what needs to happen here, with smooth movement that is generally warm and inviting in a story about kidnapping pets to turn into coats. The voice talent is mostly for the animals than the humans, probably because the casting wanted deep voices for the former to begin with. Taylor had one notable film credit with The Time Machine (1960), although he had prior extensive experience in radio work in his native Australia. He makes a solid presence as the leader of the dog bunch that makes for a few chuckles. Daniels and Bauer split the voice role because Daniels had left production months into voicing - honestly, I couldn't quite tell the difference, but each do fine in grace to match with Taylor. Wright and Davis make decent human focuses to go with the proceedings, but obviously Gerson is the general highlight, utilizing a choice of voice that was meant to be a "phony theatrical voice, someone who's set sail from New York but hasn't quite reached England"- this works well in over-the-top villainy that is distinct and worth remembering, while Worlock and O'Malley make neat comic relief. The other voices are used for moments from time to time involving general animal amusement, such as communicating great distances with barks or cows giving milk to hungry dogs. This was the last directorial effort for Luske, a Disney mainstay for two decades who had one more highlight with his work on Mary Poppins (1964), which saw him direct the animated sequence that saw him awarded an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects; Luske died at the age of 64 in 1968. This was also the final directorial effort by Geronimi, who had left Disney for UPA and television in 1959. Reitherman, who directed his first film with Sleeping Beauty (1959), would direct a handful of Disney features for the next 15 years. As a whole, it is a nice and light feature, packed with fair adventure and charm that one would hope from a film like this, one that shows landscapes with vast curiosity just as much as it shows neat adventure with dogs in contemporary times. It's a cute little good movie, and that makes it something special even after six decades.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, folks. With this 163rd review, I have matched 2021 in the amount of films spotlighted on Movie Night. For the sixth time in the history of Movie Night (12/20/2010-present, 4,387 days if you want to be precise), there was over 150 reviews in one year, and this doesn't even include the Redux Reviews, for which there were sixteen of them. The next couple of months will be interesting ones, seeing the second rendition of New Directors Month in January along with the third editions of Black History Month (February) and Women's History Month (March). Oh, and a certain milestone is coming. We'll see a few more reviews over the final week of 2022; there has been a certain pattern with these reviews to cover a few names neglected over the past few years, so we shall see what is next...
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