The Aristocats (1970)


Today I decided to knock out the other Disney pre-Renaissance film that I had not seen before, the movie The Aristocats.

The Movie:

 The Aristocats is the 20th movie in the Disney Animated Canon.  It was the last film of the canon approved by Walt Disney before his death in 1966 and the first one that he did no work on.  It is one of the early movies in the Disney "Dark Age."

The movie takes place in Paris in 1910.  The cat Duchess and her three kittens are the pets of the wealthy Madame, who makes out her will to leave everything to the cats at first, and then the butler Edgar after they die.  Upon hearing about the will, Edgar catnaps the cats and abandons them in the French countryside.  There the cats meet Thomas O'Malley, an alley cat who agrees to help them get back to Paris.

The Aristocats is a fairly simple but charming tale and a pretty good movie.  There isn't much of a plot, but the movie works because of the strength of the voice acting.  (However, I couldn't help but think of Winnie-the-Pooh every time Roquefort talk.  And yes, I know they were both voiced by Sterling Holloway.)  The scenes with the farm dogs, while fun, tend to go on a bit long, especially because the rest of the story is pretty streamlined.

But of course, everyone remembers this film for the music.  This was the last Disney film with songs by the Sherman Brothers before they left the studio, but most of their work didn't make it into the final film.  The two that did, the title song and "Scales and Arpeggios" are nice, but it's the jazz numbers that give the film its distinct character.  The highlight tune is the Floyd Huddleston and Al Rinker penned "Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat."  Additional jazz touches come from the fun score by Disney stalwart George Bruns.  Though it must be said, since the movie takes place in 1910, the music is about two decades ahead of its time.

On a side note, unlike The Black Cauldron, where it is easy to see how that one never made it into the rotation, I'm not sure how, out of all the Disney movies, I never saw this one as a kid.  Maybe it's because my family always had dogs and not cats, but otherwise I'm not sure.  Though interestingly enough, a few years ago, I did see a local community theater children's production of this story.

Presence in the Parks:

 This is another one of those movies that really doesn't get much love at the parks, not even a clip in the nighttime shows.  Marie (one of the kittens) has been a meetable character in the Magic Kingdom in recent years, but that's about it.

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