One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)

One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)

7/10

Starring the voices of

Rod Taylor

Cate Bauer

Betty Lou Gerson

Ben Wright

Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, Hamilton Luske and Clyde Geronimi

With one of the most iconic villains in the whole world of villains, Cruella De Vil made this movie spectacular. Yes, there was the fun of seeing spotted pups moving around in the snow trying to get home. The adventure of trying to make it back home while being chased by two hard heads wanting to kill these beautiful dogs. Then there was the love and romance between the lead human characters and the lead dogs. All of this does not add up to the beautiful song, when the lead male character wrote a song on the fly when he met Cruella De Vil. Nor does it take the power off the iconic villain herself.

Cruella was more than mean, she was like her name, Cruel and Devilish. Wanting to kill one hundred and one dalmatians to make for herself a fur coat. After the box office flop of Sleeping Beauty, Walt Disney almost closed the animation studio. He went on with this and spent less in the animation which can be seen if you compare the animation of Sleeping Beauty (1959) with that of One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

Based on The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith, the animation is closely tied to the children’s book.

Roger is a bachelor who lives alone with his Dalmatian, Pongo.

Pongo decided to that his bachelor life along with his master's needs a spice. So, he went searching for a mate for them both, until he saw a female dog owner named Anita and her female Dalmatian, Perdita.

He arranges a quick meet by forcing Roger to take him for a walk in the park and forcing them to run into each other. The whole clumsy meeting led Roger and Anita to fall in love and get married.

Anita has a friend named Cruella De Vil who loves fur coat, and she had an arrangement with Anita to buy her puppies when they are born. Perdita did get pregnant and gave birth to a litter of fifteen puppies. Roger decided not to sell the puppies to Cruella which made her upset, she sent her goons to kidnap the puppies which they did, making the home of Roger and Anita sad.

Using "Twilight bark", a canine gossip line, Pongo asked for help from the other dogs in London. When news came to them on where the pups could be he and Perdita went to go search for them.

There begins the tale of the couple, who searching for their pups and found them with other pups making a total of one hundred and one puppies, which the couple decided to rescue them all.

Awesome movie, great comeback for Walt Disney at the time as the movie was a box office hit and a good movie to own a copy of.