MOVIE REVIEWS : Disney’s ‘Dalmatians’ Still Hits the Spot 30 Years Later

When the opulent storybook of fantasy “Sleeping Beauty” failed to repeat the box-office success of “Cinderella” and “Peter Pan” in 1959, the Disney artists turned to the more contemporary story of “101 Dalmatians” (1961, in re-release, citywide).

As no E-ticket summer blockbuster is aimed at family audiences, “Dalmatians” seems assured of a warm reception from parents and children, and with good reason. Thirty years after its initial release, the film remains fresh, funny and thoroughly entertaining. The current revulsion against wearing furs makes this story about a vain woman who plots to murder dogs for their black-and-white pelts seem both more fantastic and more alarming.

“Dalmatians” represented an experiment in design for the Disney artists: The characters and backgrounds have a clean, simplified look that reflects early ‘60s graphics. Although they’re fully animated, the dogs and their human “pets” are flatter and more angular-looking than the rounded figures in “Snow White” or “Pinocchio.” However the walks and runs of the individual dogs are as accurately observed and drawn as they are in, say, “Lady and the Tramp.” The Dalmatian parents, Pongo and Perdita, and their 13 puppies emerge as credible, appealing characters--their resourceful personalities make them the dogs everyone likes to think he owns.

But the redoubtable Cruella De Vil dominates the film: With her booming voice (provided by Betty Lou Gerson) and extravagant gestures, she leaves a trail of shattered glass and frazzled nerves wherever she passes. Even when she’s not on screen, her presence hangs over the film, like the pall of noxious yellow cigarette smoke that follows in her wake. The first of Disney’s comic villainesses, she is genuinely menacing and outrageously funny.

The comment by Oscar-winning Warner Bros. director Chuck Jones, “Only Disney would have considered making a film about 101 spotted dogs--we’d have had trouble making a film about one spotted dog” reveals one of the major difficulties the film makers encountered.

In live action, it’s no harder to film a spotted dog than a solid-colored one; but in animation, each spot has to be drawn and kept in the same place on each dog in every one of thousands of drawings--a daunting task. Pongo, who narrates the story, has 72 spots on his coat, and according to studio sources, there are 6,469,952 spots in the film. But who’s counting?