The AristoCats
Tags: good versus evil, psychedelic, cute, entertaining

Plot synopsis:
In Paris, France, wealthy and aging socialite Madame Adelaide Bonfamille lives with her cat Duchess, and Duchess' three kittens: Berlioz, Toulouse, and Marie. Also in her employ is a butler, named Edgar.One day, Madame sends for her friend, George Hautecourt. The task is to finalize and make up Madame's will. Unknown to the two of them, Edgar is listening in. Madame notes that she has no living relatives, and considers her cats to be just as much a part of her family as anything else. As Edgar listens, he's shocked that Madam is planning to give her entire fortune to them, with the estate to be turned over to Edgar once the cats expire.Of course, Edgar is not at all happy about this, as the cats will easily outlive him! Edgar slips some sleeping pills in the cat's daily serving of cream, and once they have passed out, and night has fallen, he takes them out to the countryside, attempting to abandon them. However, his plans are ruined when a pair of dogs named Lafayette and Napoleon give chase. Edgar abandons the cats in a field before heading back to Paris.The next day, the cats awaken to find themselves not in their home, but in the countryside, and soon meet a cat named Thomas O'Malley. After some talk, O'Malley offers to help get the family back to Madame Bonfamille.Meanwhile, back in Paris, a house-mouse in Madam Bonfamille's residence named Rocquefort confirs with Madame's coach horse, Frou-Frou. Both are unsure what has become of their friends, when Edgar comes into Frou-Frou's stables very chipper. As Frou-Frou can't talk, Edgar shows her the headline from the morning's paper, telling of a mysterious catnapper taking off with Duchess and her children. Edgar seems to think he's gotten away with his little crime...until he realizes that he left his hat and umbrella out in the countryside, and quickly rushes out to retrieve them.Meanwhile, Thomas, Duchess and the kids hitch a ride on a milk truck, before being found out by the driver. They next attempt to follow a train track, until a train causes them to dive off. However, little Marie gets swept up in a nearby river. Thomas jumps in to save her, and the family follows him downstream.They then meet up with two female geese, Abigail and Amelia. The group then follow the two to their Uncle Waldo. Their journey takes them to a restaurant where Uncle Waldo has escaped from becoming the main course. However, being marinated in white wine has caused Uncle Waldo to be quite tipsy.Meanwhile, Edgar returns to the countryside and manages to get back his hat and umbrella, but not before Napoleon and Lafayette attempt to nip at his heels again.Back in Paris, the cats are almost home, but worn out from their trip. O'Malley then takes them to Scat Cat's abode in an abandoned building. Scat Cat and his gang of alley cats entertain the family, before heading off into the night.After the kittens are put to bed, Duchess and O'Malley share a tender moment. While Duchess tells of her eagerness to return to Madame, O'Malley (who has never really known kindness from humans), just thinks Madame sees Duchess and her kittens as housepets. Duchess however, explains that Madame sees them as more than this: they are the equivalent of a family to her.The next morning, O'Malley leads the family back to Madame's mansion. After saying his goodbyes, the cats head to the front door...only to be confronted by Edgar, who quickly throws them in a sack.Rocquefort has seen the whole thing, and after going to Duchess and the kittens in the sack, is told to find O'Malley. Rocquefort runs off and catches up to O'Malley. Thomas heads back to the mansion, and tells Rocquefort to find Scat Cat and his gang.Back in the mansion's stables, Edgar puts the cats into a trunk, telling them of his plans to send them to Timbuktu. He has already called for a truck to pick the trunk up, when O'Malley bursts in and attacks Edgar. Soon after, Scat Cat and his gang arrive to help, while Rocquefort manages to pick the lock and get the cats out. Scat Cat's gang, with some help from Frou-Frou, manage to knock Edgar into the trunk and out the stable's doors, just as the pick-up service arrives, taking it away.Some time afterward, Madame Bonfamille finds that Edgar has gone missing for some unknown reason, and calls on George to repurpose her will, removing him from any inheritance. Thomas is welcomed into the family, and Madam also has chosen to allow her mansion to be a safe haven for all the alley cats in Paris.The film ends with Scat Cat and his gang throwing a wild party at Madame's abode.

Review: Set in Paris in the year 1910, a retired old rich opera singer decides to give her fortune away to her beautiful cat Duchess ( voiced by Eva Gabor) and her kittens, but the jealous butler Edgar comes up with a plan as he kidnaps the cats and leaves them in the countryside.
Luckily for them with the help of a streetwise and independent tomcat named Thomas O'Malley ( voiced by Phil Harris) helps them get home especially meeting some of his good friends like the swinging' Scat Cat ( voiced by Scatman Crothers) and try to foil Edgar's plans.Very entertaining and edgy post-Walt Disney's death animated movie with a couple of nice jazzy tunes like the memorable "Everybody wants to be a cat", good voice acting and some terrific animation for it's time even in these times of computer animation.
In this case, we have Phil Harris, Sterling Holloway, Paul Winchell, Eva Gabor and Pat Buttram.The characters are generally cool: Thomas O'Malley, Duchess and her 3 kittens, the mouse Roquefort, the alley cats, the English geese, the hound dogs and the horse.
The human characters are included as well: the eccentric and kind retired Opera singer Madame Adelaide Bonfamille, the comic Madame's old lawyer Georges Hautecourt and Edgar himself!About the soundtrack, it has some nice and catchy songs such as Thomas O'Malley's theme (but I can't remember its name), "Everybody Wants to be a Cat" and "The Aristocats" (sung by Maurice Chevalier), for example.This movie takes place in Paris (France), in the year of 1910.
An imaginative and jolly Disney adaptation being inspired by the true story of a Parisian family of cats, circa 1910, that inherited a fabulous fortune , including brilliant drawings and catching score by George Bruns .This was originally intended as a two-part, live-action installment of the TV series Disneyland (1954).
This agreeable animation movie contains a lively and enjoyable musical score by George Bruns .motion picture was well directed by Wolfgang Reitherman helped by Eric Larson , in fact this was the last film in which Larson worked as a supervising animator ; from then on he concentrated on training the younger animators that came to the studio during the seventies and eighties a good craftsman from Disney factory .
As others have noted, the plot is essentially a cross between the romance in Lady and the Tramp and the kidnapping/journey home story in 101 Dalmatians.But to overcome this flaw, the filmmakers have successfully used many of the better features of most of the Disney animated films of the previous 10-15 years: Phil Harris (from The Jungle Book) voicing one of the main characters, follows his duet with Louis Prima in the previous film with another here with Scatman Crothers.
(This is probably one of Disney's least memorable villains.) The main story goes back and forth between the cats, and the butler's ongoing difficulties with two rural hound dogs (with great voice work by Pat Buttram and George "Goober" Lindsey").
The various animal characters are similarly familiar to those who have seen "Tramp" and "Dalmatians." The cats' owner, while bearing a striking visual resemblance to the wicked stepmother in Sleeping Beauty, bears none of that character's nasty traits and comes across as very warm and generous.The real strength of the film is the voice work; after first going toward the use of mostly familiar actors in The Jungle Book, the tactic is continued strongly here with Disney veterans Harris and Sterling Holloway from The Jungle Book, and Eva Gabor (who would do a very similar character in the later film The Rescuers), as well as Crothers and Nancy Kulp.
Overall, there's very little of the type of more frightening scenes found in many other Disney classics.One minor oddity is the way some visual aspects of 60's culture are depicted among the jazz-performing cats in supposedly 1910 Paris; one can't help but wonder why the story wasn't set solidly in the present, other than the great deal Paris had changed much of its appearance in the intervening time.
Since cats have nine lives, I'll give you nine reasons to see this movie:* The kittens Berlioz and Toulouse playing the piano together (so unbelievably cute!) * The car-chasing dogs Napoleon and Lafayette * Toulouse jumping like electrified every time he wants to be like a tough alley cat * Marie sighing romantically while alley cat O'Malley seduces her mom * Scat Cat and his jazz band, singing "ev'rybody wants to be a cat" * Stupid but proper and nice English geese Amelia and Abigail who make the cats walk like geese * O'Malley obtaining the "magic carpet" which puts the Cheshire cat to shame * Roquefort the brave mouse's journey to ask help from alley cats * Edgar the butler chase scenes and transition from a nice guy to an insane cat hater due to cat riddance plan gone bad.
The Aristocats is really quite charming, and is rated far too low on IMDb. The songs aren't as memorable as the ones in the Jungle Book, but they weren't bad at all, Everybody wants to be a Cat is a classic and the title song is brilliantly sung by Gigi's Maurice Chavelier.
Another great piece of animation was O' Malley looking into Duchess's eyes, as their romance was so believable while not obvious.(a good thing)The plot(about a greedy butler and a fortune, reminds me of Bailey's Billions) was a little unoriginal, but worked very well, and the script was really funny, especially the fights between the kittens.
The AristoCats follows a rich feline and her three kittens, after their elderly owner willed all of her belongings to the cats, her butler Edgar plots to get rid of the felines.This movie is hilarious.
The song "Everybody Wants to be a Cat" will be stuck in your head for days!The plot isn't very realistic (Is Disney ever "Realistic"?) But it's a lot if fun.
Yet another pleasant if less than original Disney animation family entertainment, with instead of 101 Dalmatians we get four cute cats (plus one) on the run, trying to escape the machinations of a nefarious butler who sees his way to a rich inheritance blocked by his rich mistress's preference for her cats over him.The déjà-vu feelings kick in even more with the familiar Disney vocal talents of Phil (Baloo) Harris, Eva Gabor and even Scatman Crothers taking prominence, plus even the background music has shades of "Baby Elephant Walk" and "The Pink Panther" at times, while themain "rough with the smooth" romance of O'Malley the alley-cat and posh-paws Duchess looks back to the studio's own "The Lady And The Tramp".As ever there are cute scenes involving the three kittens and a friendly mouse, some entertaining chase scenes, a nick-of-time rescue and of course a happy ending.
Frightened and alone, they come across a charming drifter cat named Thomas O'Malley (Phil Harris), who teaches the privileged cats about the joys of being a wanderer.Apart from the obvious similarities to Disney's previous efforts, Lady and the Tramp (1955) and 101 Dalmatians (1961), there are two things about The Aristocats that troubled me.
It could be seen as one the final 'classic' animated films that Disney produced before they experienced a difficult decade or so, and it does retain that warm, familiar feeling that the likes of Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) lacked (although they are certainly considered amongst Disney's best achievements).
The songs are wonderful, particularly the standout Everybody Wants To Be a Cat, headed by Scatman Crothers and featuring one of Disney's funniest casually- racist characters.
Yet the similarities to other, better Disney classics damage the film, and apart from the beautiful, hand-drawn animation and top-tapping tunes, The Aristocats struggles to stand out.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com.
As John Grant notes in "The Encyclopedia of Walt Disney Animated Characters", unlike Cruella De Vil, whose goals are relatively reasonable in a twisted fashion; Edgar is simply too stupid and short sighted to realize that he would be sure to have guaranteed job security as the cats' caretaker before he inevitably inherits the fortune himself.
and still today enjoyed it so fully...Greedy butler Edgar tries to get rid of her mistress' cats to have their inheritance, however, a clever mouse, two dogs, English Goose sisters, a horse and a charming alley cat with his band of jazz cats save the day for Duchess and her kittens.Great Disney fare for all.
The characters are funny, the animation is nice, like 101 damations, the style is nice and this pic I share amongst the best animated movies from Disney: not sentimental and just plain fun to watch.
Not bad tune for a Walt Disney animated classic.If you enjoyed The AristoCats then you may enjoy film like: "Lady and the Tramp", "101 Dalmatians", "The Fox and the Hound" and "The Rescuers".9.5/10.
A Paris-setting Disney traditional animation from 1970, THE ARISTOCATS does present a foreign-looking style of a 2-dimensional continental outlook and tell us a not-so-adventurous little vignette of a fairytale, a personification of animals (cats, dogs, a rat, a horse and geese), the story is about a gentrified quartet of pet cats (a mother with her three offering), who are outcast into the wild by a reprobate butler since they are in his way to inheritance of a wealthy Madame (the pets' owner).
The voice cast is mellifluously solid, my own pick is Scatman Holloway's Scat Cat (a reincarnation and tribute of Louis Armstrong), while the action sequences between the butler and the two bandit dogs (Napoleon and Lafayette) are the high moment of the film, idiotic, yes, but masterfully concocted and slickly edited nonetheless, which nowadays has been substituted by grandiose spectacles in the mainstream animation branch.
1962's independently-produced "Gay Purr-ee" was groovier, and Disney's own "Lady and the Tramp" and "101 Dalmatians" covered this ground (with dogs) with much more spirit--not to mention better songs--so "The Aristocats" was already second-best on three counts: story, presentation and music.
NOTE: This film was recommended to me by Lizz Rutter for "Steve Pulaski Sees It." Disney's The Aristocats is such a charming, almost compelling story that I wished the narrative didn't need to interrupt itself so sporadically with jazz-fueled musical numbers amongst not only cats, but dogs and a variety of other animals.
The Aristocats is a simplistic story, concerning a wealthy woman named Madame Adelaide (voiced by Hermione Baddeley) in 1910 Paris that has just signed a will granting her lavish estate to her cat Dutchess (Eva Gabor) and her three kittens.
For an animated film in the modern day, even some of the best ones stamped with the Disney or Disney Pixar approval can't help but feel a bit scatterbrained in some sense, stepping over their toes to try and cover all the bases in subplots, character relations, and cause-and-effect relationships that are questionably worthy of being a focus in said film.The Aristocats was birthed in a time when animation took a more relaxed and reserved approach, which is why we could see Duchess, O'Malley, and Duchess's kittens do everything from hop aboard a train to meet two snobby swans in a river below a bridge.
Of course, the film cuts back to Madame Adelaide desperately trying to find her cats, along with Edgar's conniving plan to make sure the furry beasts will never come home, and the jazzy musical numbers occasionally get in the way of a film that's already extremely short (a mere seventy-eight minutes).
However, nothing truly distracts from The Aristocats being simple, effervescent entertainment with a plethora of fun characters, a timely moral, and, okay, some pretty catchy jazz numbers as well.Voiced by: Edna Gabor, Phil Harris, Hermione Baddeley, and Roddy Maude-Roxby.
They have to find their way back home to Paris with the help of an alley cat named O'Malley.At the beginning of the movie, I was thinking that the animation was not as good in this one compared to some of the earlier ones.There were some great characters and some really funny moments.
Now I think people are too hard on the film's 'villain' Edgar the butler; he is overjoyed to hear that Madame will inherit her fortune to him - until he hears that the cats will get the money first and and poor Edgar is dismayed, especially knowing he'll die long before the family does.
All the acting voices are well done, the story is short and sweet and the atmosphere of the film's premise is good at times as it changes.I've always got a favorite character in a Disney film and mine would be Edgar because he's a smart idiot who has been triggered to being a victim of not getting the enormous fortune.
In the film, the "dating" between Duchess and O'Malley recalls the dating scenes made twenty years earlier for "The Lady and the Tramp".One of the most appreciated features of this film is the soundtrack, which contains a number of interesting musical moments, from the song of Siamese cats to the song that kittens sing at the piano.
The music for one is pretty sweet, with jazzy tunes and one true classic in Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat. Plus, the two main characters, Duchess and O'Malley, while painfully similar to Lady and the Tramp, are at least interesting to follow, whereas the three children have no personalities of their own, aside from one of them being a female.Furthermore, the film's plot is full of holes, the villain is one of the least interesting Disney villains I've ever seen, the film is nothing more than a sequence of uninteresting side characters met one after another, the conclusion has no stages and as a whole it simply lacks effort.The Aristocats is perfectly fine as a children's film.
Walt Disney finally produced(before his untimely death) this delightful animated feature film that focuses on cats, as a rich Madame living in Paris in the early 20th century intends to leave her fortune to her beloved cat Duchess and her three kittens.
True, the plot isn't that original or inspired, but filled with such good characters and songs like "Everybody Want's To Be A Cat" that it is of little consequence..
When it comes to Disney animation, everybody has one favourite, and while often that boils down to the "classic" films like Bambi or Snow White, mine's from a later era: Aristocats, the best of Wolfgang Reitherman's works for Disney in my opinion.
It just works: We have cute kittens, we have a love story like in "Lady and the Tramp" in Duchesse and Tom O'Malley, we have a Mouse seeking the help of a gang of street-cats, we have two English geese on their Euro-trip, we have a delightfully inapt villain and two ferocious (if old) dogs, and we have a lot of really good songs and music and playful animation.
The animation and backgrounds are a bit scratchy in places, typical of Disney's 70s films, but it does have a rustic, old fashioned charm about it.The Aristocats strongest points are the characters, the music and the humour.
The film is based on a true story but borrows more plot elements from other Disney classics, a villain motivated by greed although not as wicked and evil as Cruella De Vil, the romance between Duchess and Thomas O'Malley, in fact, the whole picture plays like a feline version of "Lady and the Tramp" with the jazzy and swingy mood of "The Jungle Book".However, the deja-vu feeling operates more on the technical aspect.
And while I'm writing, I have the catchy 'Everybody wants to be a cat' sung by Scatman Crothers in mind and the extraordinary piano falling through the building's floors and I feel like I should be more enthusiastic.Like every Disney classic, "The AristoCats" has a great deal of music, starting with the opening songs sung by Maurice Chevalier.
A group of cats look to find their way home after being kidnapped by a greedy butler.The Aristocats is regarded as one of Walt Disney's finest 2D animations with its charming script and cool characters, but it doesn't quite have the magic that created Snow White or the Jungle Book.The slow opening will have younger viewers raising their eyebrows but once the cats become established into the story does the fun and entertainment begin.The young cats create the most enjoyment with a charming young hearted rivalry, the special kind of bonding any brother or sister of any age can associate with.Not the funniest Disney picture out there but there are some great comic moments, especially involving the Cats and the Dogs.
Disney and Friends continue their hard work in animation with the cat version of "101 Dalmatians," the 1970 classic film "The Aristocats." It's a movie about cool cats!!!!!
OK, as others have pointed out, not the most complex or inventive of plots, but there's more to a film than that.Great characters, Phil Harris stealing the show as Thomas O'Malley, but Edgar the butler not far behind.
Lost and confused, Duchess and her children strike up an acquaintance with a sweet-talking alley cat, Thomas O'Malley (Phil Harris), who agrees to show them the way home.Animation-wise, 'The AristoCats' isn't anything particularly notable, with much earlier Disney films such as 'Snow White' and 'Fantasia (1940),' demonstrating a similar, or even superior, visual style.
Along the way and Duchess meets a charming ladies man called Thomas O Malley(Phil Harris who I think voiced Babloo in The Jungle Book back in 1966 the year Walt Disney died)an alley cat who stumbles across Duchess and her three kittens and together the three go back to Paris to find Duchess's owner again.So do I like this movie; well the music is pretty similar to the 2009 49th Animated flick The Princess & The Frog which has jazz music too but that was set in 1920s New Orleans,The Aristocrats was set in Paris 1910(yeah JAZZ music in Paris; I had no idea that Jazz music was in Paris France till this came out).Overall I found this movie to be good.