101 Dalmatians

[osprey_archer]

We're reaching the peak nostalgia section of the Disney rewatch! 101 Dalmatians, Robin Hood, The Rescuers... and also some other movies that I did not watch a hundred times as a small child, possibly just because we didn't own them, it seems unlikely that I could have resisted five hundred rewatches of The Aristocats if we'd had it on VHS.

This section kicks off with 101 Dalmatians, which in my youth was one of my very favorite movies. (I love it so much that I once wrote a Yuletide fic for it. Cruella's obsession with fur coats is prefigured by an obsession with Anita's hair (and also possibly Anita generally, although Anita is generally oblivious to any crushes going on): Covetous.)

As a child I adored the movie for the many, many puppies; I had Patch and Rolly plushies, and maybe also Lucky? Other highlights included the part where the puppies are crawling through the hole in the wall of the creepy old de Vil mansion (which is called Hell House! Oh my God), such tension, the bad guys Jasper and Horace might wake up and catch them at any moment. Also the bit where the Dalmatians all cover themselves in soot to pretend to be labradors, and then just when it seems they'll all be safely stowed away in the moving truck to London, melting snow falls on their noses and reveals them as Dalmatians right before Cruella's eyes. A madcap chase ensues! One of many madcap chases! Seriously, this movie has intense madcap chase game.

Rewatching it, I also got a kick out of the adult characters, particularly Nanny. She's such an echo of Flora and Fauna and Meriwether in Sleeping Beauty! Except a regular human instead of a fairy. In general I think Disney is quite good at these feisty older woman characters, actually, Grandmother Fa in Mulan comes to mind as another example.

Also props to the Colonel (a sheepdog) and Sergeant Tibbs (a cat). Sergeant Tibbs, Julie and I agreed, does not get paid enough. The real hero of the movie! Sneaking all 99 puppies out of that drawing room! Also keeping them quiet the whole time, a true hero, an expert puppy wrangler, give that cat a medal.

***

A few years ago, I tried to read the Dodie Smith book on which the movie is based, but I didn't get very far with it. In general, I haven't really gotten on with any of Smith's books except I Capture the Castle, which is so odd because I LOVE I Capture the Castle... but it's like Smith had one serious book in her, and everything else she wrote after was weightless fluff. I don't understand it.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Now that you mention it, I believe Wakanomori read not only 1,001 Dalmatians, but also the sequel, The Starlight Barking to the forest creatures when they were tiny... I remember *nothing* about them aside from the fact that twilight (... or... starlight?) is the time when all the dogs talk to each other--hence the title. Just now I looked at the Wikipedia entry on it and whoa, nope, did not remember that.

I do remember the cartoon, though--and agree with you about scene where the soot fails, and also about Sergeant Tibbs and the Colonel.

[osprey_archer]

One of my aunts, who grew up in the country, told me that the twilight barking is an actual thing: when she grew up, the dogs on the farm would in fact bark at twilight, and if you were quiet you could hear the other dogs barking up and down the countryside too.

The moment when the icicle drip washes the soot off Pongo's coat! TRUE CINEMATIC SUSPENSE.

[asakiyume]

It absolutely is! I heard it in East Timor, too.

[thisbluespirit]

A few years ago, I tried to read the Dodie Smith book on which the movie is based, but I didn't get very far with it.

It is a very light and young book, to be fair. My teacher read it to us when we were 7 and I adored it, so I've never been able to really love the cartoon because they cut out Perdita (and called Missis Perdita) and made the two Nannies into one Nanny (which is wrong! how can you not have Nanny Butler in her trousers, go away.)

I gave my copy my lifeblood, I loved it so much. (I bled via a wobbly tooth all over it and then my baby sister chewed it and I... may still have it. *g*) Anyway, how I visualised it was the Puffin edition illustrations and Disney was highly unsatisfactory in comparison. It was fun enough, and all that, but not proper Hundred and One Dalmatians.

So, yeah, if you get it young enough, it's a complete delight.

The Starlight Barking, though, is just really weird.

I Capture the Castle, though, is a YA book and supposed to be a bit autobiographical. I've read a couple of her other adult books and they're also rather like I Capture, but weirder. Both very light at the start and hugely sad by the end.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I can definitely see how it would be a book that you've got to read young. And I feel in my soul this imprinting on book illustrations so hard that other adaptations are Unacceptable: when I was young I loved the Little House on the Prairie illustrations with Pa with his whiskers, and when I saw the TV show and Pa was clean-shaven I would have nothing more to do with it.

I've also had this work the other way, too. I grew up with the animated Disney Winnie the Pooh and for a while I found the E. H . Shepard illustrations rather disturbing. (I've grown fond of them now, though!)

[thisbluespirit]

The illustrations are really lovely, and it is a book that rewards re-reading as an adult, even if it didn't work for you. I found some of the ills online here and here.

I grew up with the animated Disney Winnie the Pooh and for a while I found the E. H . Shepard illustrations rather disturbing.

Yes, a lot of things are what we're used to!