The mis-adventures of a family of cats, abducted by the family butler when he learns that the inheritance that was to have been his, is in fact now to go to the cats.
Apparently "The Aristocats" was originally intended to be a two-part live-action TV production for the "Wonderful World Of Colour" series, but was shelved when Walt Disney decided, following the success of "The Jungle Book" it would be an animated production for the big screen.
The recording of the title song by Maurice Chevalier was also at the direct bequest of
Walt. Chevalier had retired at 80 a couple of years before. His last movie, back in 1967
("Monkeys Go Home") was for Disney. Chevalier was adamant about remaining in
retirement, but made an exception for the "Aristocats" writing, "I would
not have done it for anybody else and for any kind of money, except the honour of showing
my love and admiration for the one and only walt".
It produced at least one popular
song "Ev'rybody Wants To Be A Cat" and has some popular characters too - the
strongest is Thomas O'Malley, or Abraham de Lacy Giuseppe Casey Thomas O'Malley to give
him his full title. Thomas the hero of the movie, is a sort of feline Baloo the bear
sporting a very similar voice. Hardly surprising since Phil Harris supplied the voice for
both Baloo and Thomas. The public seemed unaware of this and the criticism of this by some
reviewers.
The mother cat, "Duchess" was modeled on Eva Gabor who did in fact voice the character. Other notable characters were voiced by Sterling Holloway (Roquefort the house-mouse) and Hermione Baddeley (Madame Adelaide Bonfamille). Defending the process of letting stars voices affect the characterizations of the various animals, director Wolfgang Reitherman reported in 'International Photographer' "Voices become more significant. For our female lead of Duchess we have Eva Gabor, who is probably the freshest femme voice we've ever had in a cartoon. Her voice was integral in Duchess personality, a real lady. The hero is Phil Harris, but his character is much different from Baloo, the bear in "The Jungle Book" O'Malley is considerably sharper and more like Clarke Gable than Wallace Beery, who was partly their model for Baloo"
The print, an extract of which was shown at the 29th BFCC is very sharp with excellent colour. One could certainly not fault our check print in any way whatsoever. The films is packaged with a short theatrical trailer which is supplied on a separate 50ft reel. Recommended - lovely print quality - a popular film with children.
Distributed by: Derann
Films.
Format: Super 8mm.
Supplied on: 3 reels (600ft).
Approximate Running Time: 67 minutes.
Colour & Sound.
Reviewer: Keith Wilton.
Reviewers rating: Print A Sound A
|
I have this film in my collection my rating: Picture This film would have got |
The above review was printed in Super Eight Film Review issue 31 from July 1995. |
This page was last updated 02 Dec 2002
Sound 
Content 