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One Hundred and One Dalmatians

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This article is about the 1961 animated film. For other uses, see 101 Dalmatians.
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
Directed byClyde Geronimi
Hamilton Luske
Wolfgang Reitherman
Written byDodie Smith (novel "The One Hundred and One Dalmatians"
Bill Peet (story)
Produced byWalt Disney
StarringRod Taylor
Cate Bauer
Betty Lou Gerson
Ben Wright
Lisa Davis
Martha Wentworth
Music byGeorge Bruns
Mel Leven (songs)
Distributed byBuena Vista Pictures
Release dates
United States January 25, 1961
Running time
79 min.
LanguageEnglish
Budget$4,000,000 USD (estimated)

One Hundred and One Dalmatians (often abbreviated as 101 Dalmatians) is the seventeenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. It was made and produced by Walt Disney, and it was originally released to theaters on January 25, 1961 by Buena Vista Distribution. It is based on the novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith.

The film features Rod Taylor as the voice of Pongo, the first of the Dalmatians, and Betty Lou Gerson as the voice of the villainous Cruella de Vil. The plot centers on the fate of the kidnapped puppies of Pongo and Perdita.

Plot

Pongo is a Dalmatian who lives in a London bachelor flat with his owner ("pet" in Pongo's mind), Roger Radcliffe, a professional songwriter. Unlike Roger who spends his days writing music, Pongo is bored with bachelor life and decides to find a wife for his pet and a mate for himself. He sees a beautiful female Dalmatian, Perdita (or Perdy for short), and her "pet", Anita heading to Regent's Park and later leads Roger to the park to meet up with them. After an awkward and unusual meeting that almost goes awry, Pongo's efforts pay off as Roger and Anita fall in love along with him and Perdita.

Once Roger and Anita (and Pongo and Perdita) get married, Perdita gives birth to 15 Dalmatian puppies. One of the puppies appears to die, but Roger is able to revive it by vigorously rubbing it in a towel.[1] Cruella De Vil, an eccentric and wealthy social parasite known to Anita from their school years, offers the human couple a large sum of money in return for the puppies so that she can make a dog-skin coat out of them. The human couple refuses, but Cruella, who will not take no for an answer, secretly hires Jasper and Horace Badun to kidnap the puppies. The humans try every effort to locate the stolen puppies but to no avail.

Heartbroken and desperate, Pongo and Perdita use the "Twilight Bark", a dog gossip chain, to alert the other dogs in England and locate their puppies. Once the puppies are located, it is up to Pongo and Perdita, along with the help of some animal friends they meet along the way, to rescue their 15 puppies. Pongo and Perdita attack Horace and Jasper at Hell Hall, with Perdita tripping Horace into the fireplace and Pongo biting Jasper on the rear end. Colonal The Dog and Sergeant Tibbs The Cat guide the puppies to safety. When the parents were reunited with their children, they discovered 84 other puppies in Cruella's possession at the old De Vil mansion, Hell Hall, and soon learn of Cruella's diabolical scheme to skin them for a coat. Pongo and Perdita decide to bring the other puppies home with them, and raise them along with their own 15. However, Cruella and the Baduns are in hot pursuit of the dogs and will stop at nothing to catch them. With help from various animal friends, the dogs make their way back to London all the while trying to avoid their pursuers. In order to try and fool Cruella and the Baduns, the Dalmatians smother their coats in black soot, covering up their spots making them appear like Black Labradors. They hitch a ride back to London in a moving van but not before Cruella and her partners see through the dog's masquerade. Jasper and Horace in their truck and Cruella in her car race after the van with the Dalmatians inside. Cruella rams the van repeatedly trying to force it off the road (promptly damaging her car in the process) while the Baduns try to cut it off from a different direction. They almost succeed but a panicked Horace accidentally tears the steering wheel from the truck's dash board, causing the vehicle to skid out of control. The Badun's truck collides with Cruella's car and both vehicles crash into a deep ravine while the dogs go to safety. Comically, the villains are shown alive and well among the wreckage of their demolished vehicles, with Cruella berating the Baduns before starting to cry.

Roger and Anita, meanwhile have continued the search, using the money Roger has made from selling his catchy tune, "Cruella de Vil". At home alone on Christmas Eve, The couple are overjoyed when the Dalmatian clan make it back home. Roger and Anita decide use the money from Roger's song to buy an estate in the country to raise the 84 other dogs along with their original fifteen, so making 101 Dalmatians. As the film closes, we see Roger working on his new song ("Dalmatian Plantation").

Production

The production of the film signaled a change in the graphic style of Disney's animation. This occurred with the introduction of xerography which eased graphic reproduction requirements, but at the price of being unable to deviate from a scratchy outline style because of the new (and time and money saving) technology's limitations, recognizable by its thick black lines. Since the line would not have fit the "round" Disney drawing style used until then (with the exception of Sleeping Beauty), a more graphic, angular style was chosen for this and subsequent films. Rotoscoping, a technique formerly used for tracing live action human characters into animated drawings, became less important.

Another reason for its look was that the animators themselves were used to producing drawings which were very sketchy, as the clean-up was taken care of by those who transferred the drawings to the cels. With the hand inkers gone, the animation ended up the way the animators drew them on paper. Later it became common to do clean-up on paper before the animation was copied, and with time and more experience, the process improved also in this area.

The technology change also happened when Disney cut its animation department after the economical failure of the very expensive Sleeping Beauty, resulting in a reduction of staff from well over 500 to less than 100 and fewer resources put into the movies. Walt Disney, who at this point had started to direct his attention more towards television and his Disneyland amusement park and less on his animated features, disliked this development. The "sketchy" graphic style would, however, remain the norm at Disney for years until the technology improved prior to the release of The Rescuers to allow a softer look. In later animated features the Xeroxed lines could be printed in different colors. Unlike many other Walt Disney animated features, One Hundred and One Dalmatians features very few songs, only three, with just one, "Cruella De Vil", playing a big part in the film. Even this song isn't sung in one setting (a scene between Cruella and Anita splits it into two parts). The other two songs are "Kanine Krunchies Jingle" (sung by Lucille Bliss, who voiced Anastasia in Disney's 1950 film Cinderella), and "Dalmatian Plantation" in which only two lines are sung at the film's closure. The MPAA was close to re-rating this movie due to the new criteria about smoking.

To achieve the spotted Dalmatians, the animators used to think of the spot pattern as a constellation. Once they had one "anchor spot", the next was placed in relation to that one spot, and so on and so on until the full pattern was achieved.[2] All total, 101 Dalmations featured 6,469,952 spots, with Pongo sporting 72 spots, Perdita 68, and each puppy having 32.[3]

Reception

One Hundred and One Dalmatians was the highest grossing film of 1961 and one of the studio's most popular films of the decade. The film was re-issued to theaters 1969, 1979, 1985, and 1991. The 1991 reissue was the twentieth highest earning film of the year for domestic earnings.[4] It has earned $215,880,014 in worldwide box office earnings during its lengthy history, and currently holds a 97% "fresh" rating from critics and users on Rotten Tomatoes.

Characters

File:Movies cruella.jpg
Cruella DeVil takes out her anger on Jasper and Horace, her bumbling henchman. This image illustrates the exaggerated mannerisms and appearance of De Vil, key to her character's continued success among audiences and critics alike.
  • Pongo

Voiced by Rod Taylor, is the protagonist and the father of the Dalmatian puppies.

  • Perdita

Voiced by Cate Bauer, is Pongo's mate and the mother of the Dalmatian puppies

  • Roger Radcliffe

Voiced by Ben Wright, is Pongo's owner and a struggling songwriter; eventually becomes rich when creating a song about Cruella de Vil, who is Anita's social parasite.

  • Anita Radcliffe

Voiced by Lisa Davis, is Perdita's owner and Roger's wife. She is something of an artist.

  • Cruella de Vil
Main article: Cruella de Vil

Voiced by Betty Lou Gerson, is the villainess of the film; an eccentric rich woman who has the puppies kidnapped in order to turn them into a fur coat. She is a social parasite; she visits her ex-classmates, keeping pretence of friendship, while taking advantage of their fears. She has an obsession for pelts, but in fact is only shown wearing a single, voluminous white coat. Beneath this, she wears a skintight swimming suit. Cruella smokes constantly and has no scruples to either commit blackmail or bad driving. She drives a long red car that appears to be a Bugatti Type 57, and is known for operating it recklessly.

  • Jasper and Horace Badun

Voiced by J. Pat O'Malley and Frederick Worlock respectively, are Cruella's comic relief henchmen who carry out the kidnapping. Jasper is tall and thin, while Horace is short and fat; otherwise, they are obviously twin brothers. They argue often. Although they appear to be stupid, Horace appears to be the more intelligent of the two, but is absolutely intimidated by his brother, who has the more ready tongue. Jasper has a closed mind to the possibility of sapience in dogs-- as well as the equal possibility of cleverness in his brother. He drinks alcohol, whereas Horace eats sandwiches. Both enjoy watching a weekly television program called "What's My Crime?", wherein the misdeeds of lawbreakers are guessed by a panel of contestants. One of the guest stars of this program, Percival "Meathead" Faunsquater, is an acquaintance of theirs.

  • Nanny

Voiced by Martha Wentworth, is Roger and Anita's maid. Very maternal and fussy. Detests Cruella, has no patience for teasing, and is very attached to the puppies. Worthless in a crisis except to give the alarm.

  • Lucky
Main article: Lucky (Dalmatian)

Voiced by Mimi Gibson, is the runt puppy from Pongo and Perdita who nearly dies immediately after being born. He is given the name "Lucky" because of being revived by Roger, who thawed him out by means of friction. He loves watching T.V. Lucky is usually played as a troublemaker, and is usually left behind because he never pays attention.

  • Rolly

Voiced by Barbara Baird, is one of Pongo and Perdita's puppies; always hungry, and shown as pudgier than the rest of the young puppies. His collar is usually shown tight around his neck with his fat bunched up around it.

  • Patch

Voiced by Mickey Maga, is Pongo and Perdita's puppy. (all of the puppies below are Pongo and Perdita's 15 puppies) Loves Thunderbolt and has a spot on his eye. Patch is usually very aggressive, barking and growling, but in the end, shows signs of being afraid of Cruella De Vil.

  • Penny

Voiced by Sandra Abbott, Is the only dog that doesn't have a specific name after her appearance or habbits like her other siblings. Penny usually agrees to anything the other puppies decide.

  • Freckles

Voiced by Mary Wickes, is another puppy of Pongo and Perdita's; has a pattern of spots over the bridge of the nose resembling freckles on a human child. Freckles is usually shown very tired, or asking many questions.

  • Pepper

Unknown voicing, usually wrinkles his nose, resulting in his name.


  • The Colonel, the Captain, and Sergeant Tibbs: A dog, a horse, and a cat who help mastermind a rescue mission to save the puppies from Cruella.

Voice Cast

Directing animators

Theatrical Releases

This film was the highest grossing film of 1961 and one of the studio's most popular films of the decade and was re-issued in: 1969, 1979, 1985, 1991,1994, and 1999 the last re-issue being one of the top 10 films of the year at the box office in a year when the studio had few hits.

101 Dalmatians Theatrical Release History

Worldwide Release Dates

Home Video Releases

One Hundred and One Dalmatians was released on VHS on April 10, 1992 as part of the Walt Disney Classics video series. It was re-released on March 9, 1999 as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection video series. On December 19, 1999, it received its first DVD release as part of Disney's Limited Issue series.A 2-disc Platinum Edition DVD was released on March 4, 2008.

Sequels and spin-offs

Main article: 101 Dalmatians

In the years since the original release of the movie, Disney has taken the property in various directions. The most widely known, as well as the earliest of these endeavors was the live-action remake, 101 Dalmatians. Starring Glenn Close as Cruella De Vil, none of the animals talked in this 1996 edition. This version's success in theatres led to 102 Dalmatians, released on November 22, 2000.

After the first live-action version of the movie, a cartoon called "101 Dalmatians: The Series" was launched. The designs of the characters were stylized further, to allow for economic animation, and appeal to the contemporary trends.

Most recently, 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure,the official sequel to the orginal animated film,was released straight-to-VHS/DVD on January 21,2003. Released almost 42 years after the orginal,it returns closer to the style of the orginal,while still slightly simplifying the imagery. The sequel took a musical-like approach, with almost double the amount of songs compared to the original, some of which were in the original film as well.

Author Dodie Smith wrote her own official sequel to the book, The Starlight Barking, which has never been adapted by any film company.

Cameos

Pongo and Perdita were featured as guests in House of Mouse, and Cruella De Vil was one of the villains in Mickey's House of Villains.

In Kingdom Hearts, Pongo and Perdita, living in Tranverse Town, have lost their puppies when the Heartless appeared. One of the side missions is to collect the 99 puppies.


References

  1. ^ Note: This puppy is unnamed in the film, however the "Puppy Profiler" trivia section on the 101 Dalmatians 2-Disc Platinum Edition DVD released in 2008 identifies her as Cadpig. In the novel, Cadpig was also the name of the puppy that almost died.
  2. ^ Encyclopaedia of Disney Animation
  3. ^ 101 Dalmations Original Animation Forensically Examined
  4. ^ "1991 Domestic Grosses #1–50". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2008-04-02.
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