One Hundred and One Dalmatians

When people think of the 1961 Disney animated film, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, they probably wouldn’t consider it an important film in the company’s library. The story of several Dalmatian puppies being kidnapped by a crazy woman who wants to turn them into fur coats sounds like a cute enough tale without many stakes or risks, but it doesn’t scream anything that amazing especially considering the other landmark films Disney released prior and after. Despite this, One Hundred and One Dalmatians was a huge hit that arguably saved Disney from the financial slump that their previous film, Sleeping Beauty, put them into, and spawned a franchise that has spanned several years and many different projects including sequels, two animated series, a live action remake with its own sequel, and even a villain prequel film in 2020. Regardless of how people view this movie, it surprisingly inspired and benefited Disney in the long run, so it does explain why despite being almost a full century old, it has still managed to survive.

In 1950s London, a dalmatian couple, Pongo and Perdita (voiced by Rod Taylor and Cate Bauer) wind up meeting and falling in love after their two human owners, Roger and Anita (voiced by Ben Wright and Lisa Davis) are directed into each other and also fall in love. After getting married and moving in together, Perdita grows pregnant and gives birth to fifteen healthy baby puppies, all of which are quickly sort after by Anita’s former schoolmate, Cruella de Vil (voiced by Betty Lou Gerson), who wishes to buy the puppies for ‘nefarious’ reasons. After storming out after being rejected, things get a little more drastic when she gets her two henchman, Horace and Jasper (voiced by Frederick Worlock and J. Pat O’Malley) to kidnap the puppies and take them to an isolated manor out in the countryside, where Cruella has stockpiled a total of 99 Dalmatian puppies who she plans to skin and turn into fur coats for her collection. Once the two Dalmatian parents discover their children’s location, it’s up to them to save all 99 of the puppies and return home while avoiding the hunting glare of Cruella.

Based on the 1956 children’s novel, The Hundred and One Dalmatians, by Dodie Smith, the film, while entirely harmless on its own, doesn’t provide a lot in terms of engaging story, character or writing, only leaving an impression due to how it helped Disney during a rough patch.

The original story by Dodie Smith contains a similar outline to what the movie presents, but significant deviations were included to either trim down content that wasn’t needed, eliminate certain elements that might have been harsh to show children (including a large sum of drowned kittens) and streamline parts to make it flow smoother as a story. These changes didn’t seem to be an issue for the author however as she was more than happy with Disney’s altercations (even preferring them to her original story) and she had always hoped Disney would be the one to adapt her book, so at least it felt like it was in the right hands. The funny thing is that critics of the era considered this film the first ‘’real Disney film in years’’ which is so bizarre considering how in terms of narrative, character or anything fresh and distinct, this movie is strongly lacking in that department. Since Disney films released within the past decade like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp and Sleeping Beauty, were not very well received when they came out, this film’s general positive reception was a change of pace, and arguably the reason for this is because of how safe it comes across. The movie does tragically feel like it exists for either a mindless cute factor, or harmless entertainment to put on for kids while they’re doing something else, but unlike other kids’ media where that is an insult and shows their poor quality, this film conveys that mindset in a less offensive manner.

The film’s narrative is a decent hook and does act as a nice smaller story against the other Disney films of the era that took from more classic stories and were a bit larger and showier with their delivery. The main screenwriter for this film was Bill Peet, who acted as a story writer for various Disney projects like Pinocchio, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty, movies that come from pre-existing source material that are later tweaked to work within a feature length film. While some of those movies have better qualities that make them work more effectively overall, his involvement along with fellow Disney alumni Wolfgang Reitherman, Hamilton Luske and Clyde Geronimi (who acted as the film’s directors), no doubt assisted in constructing this film in a very traditional Disney manner. The climax is also pretty neat, as having a car chase in a Disney film was pretty new at the time. Finishing this very quiet, mellow picture with an action sequence is odd but also appreciated, and the build-up to it is nicely laid out and concludes things rather nicely. However, nothing around this set-up or premise really screams like it warrants a filmed adaptation, making it inoffensive visual junk food, but not much else.

The characters, like previously stated, were changed slightly from the original source, but the story regardless wouldn’t have suffered much from these changes as sadly, none of these characters are particularly memorable or even that strong. It’s sad to say that the strongest and easily best part of this movie is the puppy-killer herself, Cruella de Vil, as much like most Disney films of the era, the leads were written as pretty flat and generic against their much more enigmatic and enthralling antagonists, and Cruella is no different, to the point that she even managed to snag her own solo movie in the future. Her character is just a fun concept in premise, design and personality; this aging, frail and brittle woman parading herself as a fancy elegant upper-class socialite by drowning herself in tacky, lavish clothing makes for a memorable look, and her mood swings that unveil her true ugly, rageful and unhinged side acts as great contrast against the usual facade, it makes for a fun character and Betty Lou Gerson does a great job showcasing both sides of the character through her voice acting and actions, which are so gruesome and hateable.

Outside of her however, the rest of the cast are really forgettable but thankfully aren’t really bad either. The main Dalmatian couple are fine, the human couple are okay, Horace and Jasper acts as the basic ‘’duo thieve’’ trope seen in several other properties but they play the role effectively enough, and pretty much all of the puppies have little to no characteristics to separate them (a little understandable as there are almost a hundred of them, but none feel like characters at all) and they only exist to look cute, sound cute and do typical dog things to get people ‘’awing’’. The only other side characters that have an element of memorability is in a brief section where the puppies are escaping from the mansion, which features a cat named Sergeant Tibbs (voiced by Dave Frankham), a sheep dog named Colonel (also voiced by J. Pat O’Malley), and a horse named Captain (voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft). These three are likeable enough cartoony side characters and in their limited screen time, strangely leave more of an impression than the main characters (which is bizarre but it’s better than nothing).

For most of Disney’s animated library, they’ve often looked very impressive for the time period, and even if they weren’t always stretching the boundaries of what animation could offer, they often tried to have something visually creative or different on-screen to make it stand out against other animation studios present at the time. Out of all the early Disney animated films, One Hundred and One Dalmatians definitely looks the safest and least impressive in terms of visual identity. While the movie at first looks like it’s trying to replicate the fashion and illustration style of the 1925 magazine, The New Yorker (especially with the cover of the first issue designed by Rea Irvin with the simple yet comical outlines and distinguished outfits) even taking inspiration from British cartoonist and satirist, Ronald Searle (whose cartoons were in The New Yorker) but once the humans leave the film, that style completely disappears and instead all that’s left are characters with bold black outlines and otherwise seen-before background layouts and sketchy textures. It’s not exactly a bad looking movie as the characters are still expressive, colorful and move fine enough, but it is easily the blandest looking of the era (even Disney himself didn’t like the look of the film).

The movie used a new Xerography technique, which involved xeroxing a photo to remove the inking process of animation. It cut back on the budget and was done to get the film finished much smoother than their previous work, helped out by being able to pretty much just copy-and-paste the multiple different puppies on the page, and while that does feel like cheating your way out of properly designing them (it is odd to praise a style that is actively restricting artists from drawing individual characters), it being used during a period when Disney was almost dead does at least make sense, as they would’ve wanted to be safe when making this movie and at least having this new technique under their belt gives it something to hold onto. Most of the music written and composed by Mel Leven is your typical Disney score of the era, but occasionally some of the blue’s elements that comes out of it sounds nice and provides a small hint of unique flair to the project (that Cruella de Vil jingle does have a good beat).

One Hundred and One Dalmatians is a bizarre situation where a movie that looks like it has nothing special to offer the world, actually means a great deal to the company that made it and arguably helped save their animation studio. This in hindsight, mixed with the more positive reception in comparison to other previous films and how well it did at the box office, makes more sense why it’s held in such high regard and how it transformed into a relatively decent-sized franchise, but the movie itself doesn’t really support this fame. As its own thing, the film is largely just generic, lacking narrative and character, has uninteresting visuals, and feels more like mindless fluff to entertain young children as opposed to something that’ll bring something new or charming to the table. It exists to feed off cute table scraps and not much else, but at least it’s not presented in a demeaning manner, it doesn’t talk down to children or treat them like a pay check, it just knows what it is and doesn’t try much harder. It won’t offer you much, but if you are okay with just watching several cute puppies do cute puppy things, this movie will fit your fancy just fine.