Miserable, Darling, As Usual, Perfectly Wretched

Sleeping Beauty was a failure at the box office, so Disney had to scale back on the scope of their animated films and 1961’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians was the result. Experimenting with the new Xerox process allowed the animators to skip the step of hand inking when transferring their drawings from paper to cell. With the artist drawing being directly translated on the cell the animation became sketchy, with visible pencil marks all over the movie. While the look is very messy, there is something to be said about the fluidity and life these movies have over the rigidity and structure of the Disney Animated movies of the 1950’s. So I usually see this movie as a successful experiment the studio tried that would dictate the look of the next two decades of movies.

This is the story of Songwriter Roger, his wife Anita, and their Dalmatians Pongo and Perdita. Anita’s old college friend, Cruella DeVil, is a fabulous fashionista obsessed with fur and wants the new litter of puppies to make a new fur coat. It’s a really simple, straight forward story that I would describe as cute and entertaining enough.

The biggest highlight of the movie is, again, its villain. Cruella is an absolute hoot to watch. She’s animated with such gusto by Marc Davis. Her body looks so pale and weak yet she has the movement and attitude of someone three times her size. And she’s not one of those calm, collected villains whose emotions turn on a dime, she is just always mean and in a bad mood. I think she’s actually the first Disney Villain to wield the weapon of passive aggression as she is never slow on a backhanded compliment. Being set in a modern time of the mod 60’s, it’s pretty fun to see a car chase in a Disney Movie. Another fun touch is that you can almost see Cruella delve deeper into insanity as she’s chasing the puppies in her car. Her eyes become wilder, her hair is more disheveled. It’s a super fun sequence. 

As I grew older and started to get a fondness for graphic design of the Mid Century, I notice that these backgrounds are wonderfully 1960’s. When you look at the 50’s and 60’s you’ll notice the colors are simple and they usually bleed over the lines due to the printing process of the time. The artist who painted the backgrounds of the movie achieved this same effect. It’s pretty fascinating considering this the backgrounds were most likely hand painted. 

It’s not that I dislike the movie. Not by any measure. In fact, I used to watch this movie over and over again when I was a child. It’s a fun movie with lots of cute doggy characters and a fun villain. There’s not much to say other than it’s a whole lot of fun. The simplistic nature of the movie helped Disney recoup its losses from Sleeping Beauty, thus keeping the Animation Department from dissolving. Seems like a big trend with the Studio, Fantasia bombed and little Dumbo saved the day. So the 60’s ushers in a new era for Walt Disney Animation Studios. Goodbye to the polished looking fairytales and hello to hipper, more free flowing stories.