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The Aristocats
The 1970 Disney confection The Aristocats is an overly cute charmer that stills provides entertainment for kids thanks to its international cast of animal and human characters, where the animals are the good guys and most of the humans are the bad guys.
The setting is Paris where a wealthy aging socialite named Madame Adelaide who, because she has no other living family, has decided to revise her will and leave her entire fortune to her cat, Duchess and her three kittens and then reverting to her loyal butler, Edgar upon their demise. Realizing that cats have nine lives, Edgar is not about to wait that long for Madame's fortune, so he decides to drug and kidnap Duchess and her kittens. He plans to drive them out to the countryside and abandon them, but he gets into an accident with a couple of hound dogs and loses track of the cats,
Duchess and her children awake from their drug-induced coma trying to figure out how they're going to get home when they happen upon O'Malley, a free-spirited alley cat and confirmed bachelor whose instant attraction to Duchess motivates him to help the cat family return to Paris. As they begin their journey, Edgar realizes he left his hat and umbrella in the country and returns to cover up the kidnapping ad eventually deciding to ship Duchess and her kittens to Timbuktu.
It's interesting viewing animated films that I loved from my childhood and noticing so many things that as a 12-year old boy I didn't even notice. If it weren't for a shot of the Eiffel Tower about halfway through the film, I never would have known the setting was Paris. It's also hard to to tell where we are since almost every character in the movie is voiced by actors with varied accents. Madame and a pair of geese that the cats meet on their journey are voiced by Brits, Scat Cat, O'Malley Cat, and the dogs Napoleon and Lafayette are voiced by Americans, and, of course, a Hungarian is providing the voice of Duchess, but kids don't really notice and won't really care. Despite the setting, I don't think a single character was voiced by a French actor.
The animation is colorful and detailed and there is some interesting camera work. There is a lovely shot of the camera closing in on Madame in her mansion through her window showing how much she misses her cats that had a haunting quality to it. Eva Gabor is lovely as Duchess (her singing is dubbed) and Phil Harris is fun as O'Malley. Pat Buttram and George Lindsey are fun as Napoleon and Lafayette and I loved the goose sisters, voiced by Monica Evans and Carole Shelley, whom you might remember as the Piegon Sisters in The Odd Couple. With the advances in animation since 1970, this might seem a little dated and corny, but there's still some fun to be had here.
The 1970 Disney confection The Aristocats is an overly cute charmer that stills provides entertainment for kids thanks to its international cast of animal and human characters, where the animals are the good guys and most of the humans are the bad guys.
The setting is Paris where a wealthy aging socialite named Madame Adelaide who, because she has no other living family, has decided to revise her will and leave her entire fortune to her cat, Duchess and her three kittens and then reverting to her loyal butler, Edgar upon their demise. Realizing that cats have nine lives, Edgar is not about to wait that long for Madame's fortune, so he decides to drug and kidnap Duchess and her kittens. He plans to drive them out to the countryside and abandon them, but he gets into an accident with a couple of hound dogs and loses track of the cats,
Duchess and her children awake from their drug-induced coma trying to figure out how they're going to get home when they happen upon O'Malley, a free-spirited alley cat and confirmed bachelor whose instant attraction to Duchess motivates him to help the cat family return to Paris. As they begin their journey, Edgar realizes he left his hat and umbrella in the country and returns to cover up the kidnapping ad eventually deciding to ship Duchess and her kittens to Timbuktu.
It's interesting viewing animated films that I loved from my childhood and noticing so many things that as a 12-year old boy I didn't even notice. If it weren't for a shot of the Eiffel Tower about halfway through the film, I never would have known the setting was Paris. It's also hard to to tell where we are since almost every character in the movie is voiced by actors with varied accents. Madame and a pair of geese that the cats meet on their journey are voiced by Brits, Scat Cat, O'Malley Cat, and the dogs Napoleon and Lafayette are voiced by Americans, and, of course, a Hungarian is providing the voice of Duchess, but kids don't really notice and won't really care. Despite the setting, I don't think a single character was voiced by a French actor.
The animation is colorful and detailed and there is some interesting camera work. There is a lovely shot of the camera closing in on Madame in her mansion through her window showing how much she misses her cats that had a haunting quality to it. Eva Gabor is lovely as Duchess (her singing is dubbed) and Phil Harris is fun as O'Malley. Pat Buttram and George Lindsey are fun as Napoleon and Lafayette and I loved the goose sisters, voiced by Monica Evans and Carole Shelley, whom you might remember as the Piegon Sisters in The Odd Couple. With the advances in animation since 1970, this might seem a little dated and corny, but there's still some fun to be had here.