TV, car chases, kidnappings... 1961 marks Walt Disney's entrance in Modernity...

Rating: 8/10 (10 January 2017)

It wasn't called Disney Renaissance for nothing: in 1989, "The Little Mermaid" was the first animated Disney to feature a princess in thirty years, the last one being "Sleeping Beauty". With that in mind, the first Disney animated feature to be released after "Sleeping Beauty" was a starter in its own right, opening an era of uneven productions that can be assimilated to dark ages. Although perceived as classics they never inspire the same glee in the eye than the likes of "Snow White" and "Pinocchio" or "Mermaid" and "Lion King". But "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" has aged better than most of its contemporary, maybe enough to compete with the legitimate masterpieces.
Now, do kids really care about these technicalities? Speaking for myself, this film is one of my earliest memories, and by that I mean very early. I had vague and foggy visions of the encounter between Pongo and Perdita (and their masters Roger and Anita) in the park, I never forgot the face of Cruella De Vil who was the first villain I could put a name on, and as a kid who was a bit cowardly, I used to hide uncer a table during the TV scene. I simply hated that startling moment where the villainous cowboy's face occupied the whole screen and scared the hell out of Patch, and me in the process (quite a "mise en abime"). I avoided watching, and later renting, the film maybe because of that moment, but the film didn't avoid me for all that.
Indeed, one of the first books I started to read at the age of 5 was based on the film and at the same time, I used to watch the Disney Channel program and to those who remember, the intro started with the iconic picture of the polka-dotted canine family staring at the TV. This is just the stuff your nostalgia is made on, you can't control it. And for all these reasons, I simply can't formulate a critic against the film without feeling like I'm betraying my inner child. But I'll let the adult speak a little: after Christmas, I bought my daughter four Disney classics and I couldn't resist the temptation. I had to see the Dalmatians, three decades after the first complete viewing. Enough with the princesses, "Frozen" and 'let-it-go!' message, how about a family- friendly film about a dog family.
After all these dragon fights and dazzling magic tricks from "Sleeping Beauty", there's a sort of cozy and relaxing little charm "Dalmatians", conveyed through that opening scene where Pongo tries to find the perfect girl for his master and culminating in the park. The next scene is a revolution; TV in a Disney film. This is an acknowledgment of the role the little screen played on Disney's expansion, and what a wonderfully crafted moment with these puppies staring at their dog hero while we stare at them. TV would even play a part to the story as the two thugs Horace and Jasper will delay their mission because they want to watch "What's My Crime?" on TV. As a big fan of the "What's My Line" channel on Youtube, I was surprised to find a parody of the program on a Disney film.
But then I remembered that even the great Walt Disney came to the show and promoted the opening of Disney World (or was it Land?). Disney was a pioneer in the sense that he could anticipate the tastes of people but he could also disconcert the expectations and make something like "One Hundred and One Dalmatians", a family oriented film in the purest sense of the world, perhaps the only Disney with a united family not affected by death, and a great message about it. Even that powerful doggy SOS where, one howl to another, dogs communicate in order to find the puppies find some strong echoes in our era affected by sad kidnapping stories. "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" marks an unexpected entrance from Walt Disney in modernity.
Of course, it had a few undesirable effects such as the constant recycling of images (I spotted that the image of Roger lighting his pipe was reused three or four times) but this is not as blatant as the case of "Sword in the Stone" or "The Aristocats" and there's obviously an element in the drawing of these little dogs (and the big ones, too) that is admirable. The sketchy drawing and seemingly static background never bothered me anyway because they fit the very kind of stories Disney would start to tell. And the way Cruella De Vil looks is integral to her appeal, she indeed looks like a devil, a monster, but she might be the most 'human' of all Disney villains, maybe the character modern audience can most relate too, she's crazy, obsessive, narcissistic, but she's a woman who backs up her words with actions, she embodies the darkest side of the 'woman-power' and contributes to one of the most thrilling climactic sequences from Disney. Can you believe that after a dragon fight, the next Disney featured a car chase, and one that holds up pretty well by today's standards.
So, it doesn't come as a surprise that she was listed among the Top 50 Greatest Villains from the Top 50 villains of the American Film Insitute's List among the Evil Queen and the Man from "Bambi", not a bad company. So for the villain, the positive message about family (maybe the only Disney where it's a central theme) and the whole 'great escape' plot, "One Hundred and One Dalmatians", if not the best, is perhaps one of the most endearing Disney features.
(And I just noticed this is the 100th review this film got, next reviewer will be happy)