The Aristocats
The movie The Aristocats began with just four cats and ended up with a whole lot more. All despite the efforts of the butler who wanted to remove the cats who preceded him in his employer’s will and ended up being totally removed himself.
Starting in Paris, this movie leads its viewers all over the country-side before getting back to the mansion where it all began. With an explosion in the local feline population.
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Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, with Eva Gabor as the voice of Duchess, the main cat, this Walt Disney Productions movie, based on a story by Tom McGowan and Tom Rowe, is still as entertaining today as when it first debuted in 1970.
The Aristocats movie began with Duchess, a fair lady cat, with three kittens, Marie, the budding beauty, and two brats, Berlioz and Toulouse, enjoying the good life as they had always been, in the mansion of their wealthy and aging owner Madame Adelaide Bonfamille, attended by the butler, Edgar. This cosy state of affairs changed when Madame decided to put it down in black and white that the cats shall inherit all her wealth with the butler as a very poor second choice.
Of course, Edgar, the butler, thought otherwise. So, after first drugging the cats, he set off to have them discarded far away in the country-side. Thus began the long and hazardous journey back home by the four cats, aided by Thomas, yet another cat, and further along in the movie, even more cats in the form of an alley cat pack.
In the end, Edgar got literally packed off to Timbuktu and the good Madame opened up her mansion to all the alley cats. Thomas, of course, was now the top cat in the house. There was also a mouse, Rocquefort, who helped with all his tiny might to bring about the happy ending. Honorable mention should also be made of two dogs, Lafayette and Napoleon, as well as an assorted menagerie of other talking and dancing animals.
This is an entertaining Disney movie for the young and young-at-heart. Especially interesting to note is the care and attention that the director gave to the antics of the young kittens. They behaved very realistically as any set of young children would. I think the director must have spent a lot of time studying children to get it all so right.
An example would be the scene somewhere near the start of the Aristocats movie, where one of the boy kittens, Berliotz, played the piano while Marie, the girl kitten, sang. The other boy kitten, Toulouse , was busy doing finger painting with the gusto of any young child let loose with a box of paints. Then Toulouse joined Berliotz on the keyboard, and finally, just like any kids would, ended up having a good old cat fight.
Edgar, the butler, made a good villain, with his supercilious sneer et al. His opposition to the gist of his employer’s will was quite common although, it beats me how anyone, especially a hired help like him, could even think that he had any claim to his employer’s wealth. Come to think of it, there are actually lots of women that think they had claims on a man’s wealth just by reason of being a wife. So maybe Edgar’s pretensions were not that absurd after all.
However, that is neither here nor there. Enjoy the Aristocats DVD as it should be enjoyed. With child-like innocence and wonderment. Did I mention that thinking too much never made anyone any younger?
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