About 60 years ago, a small little animated feature came out from Walt Disney's studio called 101 Dalmatians, based on the book of the same name by Dodie Smith. Released two years after the ambitious albeit financial flump that was Sleeping Beauty, the film was the smash hit that saved the Disney company from falling into bankruptcy, mostly given its smaller budget and cost effective xerography process at the time, in addition to many critics hailing it as one of the last great films produced by Walt himself prior to his death. So given its long lasting legacy, sequels and spinoffs, how exactly does it hold up nowadays?
Set in then modern London, England, the film tells the story of two Dalmatians named Pongo and Perdita, whose puppies get kidnapped by the villainous coat maker Cruella deVille. Along the two's journey to save their children, Pongo and Perdita end up rescuing 84 additional puppies, bringing their total up to 101. Now given that premise, admittedly the film's weakest element is the plot, as it's pretty routine and predictable with not too many surprises for what will come next. However, what does save the story from being dull is the humor and charming characters. As the first several minutes start off with how Pongo and Perdita met, it ends up creating some funny shenanigans between their individual owners, Roger and Anita, one being a suave albeit assertive songwriter and the other being a kind albeit overly concerned person, having been a former schoolmate of Cruella De Vil. Speaking of Cruella, Betty Lou Gerson and animator Marc Davis steal the show with her hammy albeit overly threatening presence, and one can tell you do not want to mess with this spoiled witch.
As for the other characters, Cruella's henchmen Horace and Jasper Baddun might have been the kickstarter of every mediocre henchmen trope in movies, but here their personalities contrast off one another so well with one being smart and the other being dumb, and they end up in some of the finer visual gags. Admittedly, the puppies themselves are more so reduced to Macguffins in the story, but they are cute enough as far as individual kids go. In addition to all that, people remember the movie most for its popular song named after Cruella herself, which is so corny that you cannot help but to sing along to it. The other songs being Kanine Krunchies, which showcased some subtle satire on the gimmicky commercialism in TV back then, and Dalmatian Plantation, which wraps the film up in such a lively harmonious fashion that you feel satisfied after the experience is over. While the Twilight Bark sequence does go on for a bit too long, it still has some fun dog barking antics and hysterical banter between the military like farm animals trying to rescue the pups, so it's still all in good fun.
Now as for the animation, the film itself is famous for being the first Disney film to use Ub Iwerks' innovative process of xerography, which allowed for the animator's pencil drawings to be directly to animation cels, therefore controversially eliminating the use of ink and paint. While Walt himself hated the process out of wanting his films to look realistic, this might be one of the best uses of the process given the film's modernesque artstyle based off of Ronald Searle artwork and Mont Blanc India ink. In addition to Ken Anderson's experimental art direction and Walt Peregoy's stylish colors, the animators clearly had a lot of fun working on the film in bringing the characters to life. Animators like the aforementioned Marc Davis, Frank Thomas and Milt Kahl especially had the time of their lives on this film after being restricted to venture into exaggerated realism for too long, especially after the nightmarish production of Sleeping Beauty. While the xerox process would go on in other Disney features onward, none even came close to matching the artistic brilliance of this feature.
So in the end, what could have easily been another standard rescue mission story ends up being highly entertaining and even boldly artistic. 101 Dalmatians might not be one of the Disney Company's greatest achievements in storytelling, but it remains a humorous thrill with fun characters, hysterical songs and luscious art experimentation nonetheless. Considering the decades worth of people who grew up with this film, there's bound to be even more generations who will too. So if you're yet to give this flick a watch, by all means give it a go at least once, and maybe you'll be hungry for some kanine krunchies afterwards.
Set in then modern London, England, the film tells the story of two Dalmatians named Pongo and Perdita, whose puppies get kidnapped by the villainous coat maker Cruella deVille. Along the two's journey to save their children, Pongo and Perdita end up rescuing 84 additional puppies, bringing their total up to 101. Now given that premise, admittedly the film's weakest element is the plot, as it's pretty routine and predictable with not too many surprises for what will come next. However, what does save the story from being dull is the humor and charming characters. As the first several minutes start off with how Pongo and Perdita met, it ends up creating some funny shenanigans between their individual owners, Roger and Anita, one being a suave albeit assertive songwriter and the other being a kind albeit overly concerned person, having been a former schoolmate of Cruella De Vil. Speaking of Cruella, Betty Lou Gerson and animator Marc Davis steal the show with her hammy albeit overly threatening presence, and one can tell you do not want to mess with this spoiled witch.
As for the other characters, Cruella's henchmen Horace and Jasper Baddun might have been the kickstarter of every mediocre henchmen trope in movies, but here their personalities contrast off one another so well with one being smart and the other being dumb, and they end up in some of the finer visual gags. Admittedly, the puppies themselves are more so reduced to Macguffins in the story, but they are cute enough as far as individual kids go. In addition to all that, people remember the movie most for its popular song named after Cruella herself, which is so corny that you cannot help but to sing along to it. The other songs being Kanine Krunchies, which showcased some subtle satire on the gimmicky commercialism in TV back then, and Dalmatian Plantation, which wraps the film up in such a lively harmonious fashion that you feel satisfied after the experience is over. While the Twilight Bark sequence does go on for a bit too long, it still has some fun dog barking antics and hysterical banter between the military like farm animals trying to rescue the pups, so it's still all in good fun.
Now as for the animation, the film itself is famous for being the first Disney film to use Ub Iwerks' innovative process of xerography, which allowed for the animator's pencil drawings to be directly to animation cels, therefore controversially eliminating the use of ink and paint. While Walt himself hated the process out of wanting his films to look realistic, this might be one of the best uses of the process given the film's modernesque artstyle based off of Ronald Searle artwork and Mont Blanc India ink. In addition to Ken Anderson's experimental art direction and Walt Peregoy's stylish colors, the animators clearly had a lot of fun working on the film in bringing the characters to life. Animators like the aforementioned Marc Davis, Frank Thomas and Milt Kahl especially had the time of their lives on this film after being restricted to venture into exaggerated realism for too long, especially after the nightmarish production of Sleeping Beauty. While the xerox process would go on in other Disney features onward, none even came close to matching the artistic brilliance of this feature.
So in the end, what could have easily been another standard rescue mission story ends up being highly entertaining and even boldly artistic. 101 Dalmatians might not be one of the Disney Company's greatest achievements in storytelling, but it remains a humorous thrill with fun characters, hysterical songs and luscious art experimentation nonetheless. Considering the decades worth of people who grew up with this film, there's bound to be even more generations who will too. So if you're yet to give this flick a watch, by all means give it a go at least once, and maybe you'll be hungry for some kanine krunchies afterwards.