The Aristocats

[osprey_archer]

Forging ahead with the Disney rewatch! I've found this to be quite a good time for rewatching things; there's something very soothing about re-experiencing a story I already know - even if only vaguely, as with The Aristocats. We didn't have this one on VHS when I was a child, so I've only seen it once.

I quite enjoyed it! Thomas O'Malley the alley cat (who inexplicably lives in the French countryside) is a classic Disney hero type, the scrappy street smart guy with a heart of gold and a lot of swagger (Robin Hood, next on our list, is probably the moment when this character type reaches its apotheosis.) It was also pleasant to visit animated Paris (we giggled when the cats just happened to run past Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower - reminiscent of the way the kids in Peter Pan perch on the hands of Big Ben), and of course the kittens are super cute.

I also really enjoyed the old people - Madam herself, and also her lawyer. One thing I've really noticed this time around is how many Disney movies have delightful secondary characters, most of whom I didn't really pay attention to when I was a kid, because I was so focused on the child characters. (Whenever we see something I watched a lot as a child, I always remember my favorite character, and it's usually the smallest child character.) Now I'm paying attention to the adult characters, too, and it's adding a whole new layer to my appreciation of the movies.

Comments

[asakiyume]

We had a picture book of this when I was a kid, but I didn't see it until I had my own kids, and then, yes, we saw it on DVD. Our favorite line was when one of the brother kittens says to the sister kitten, "You're not a lady; you're nothing but a SISTER."

Oh, and the ending. "I'm the leader, I'll say when it's the end ... it's the end."

[osprey_archer]

That's such a sibling mood! Actually, the whole movie does a good job portraying a certain kind of sibling relationship; Disney did a really good job portraying children in that era (thinking also of the quartet of kids in Robin Hood, the three rabbits and their turtle friend).

[kore]

I saw this and had a songbook of it, but I always mixed it up with "Gay Pur-ee," which I couldn't ever find until a friend remembered the title when I was an ADULT. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Purr-ee "It's a musical about some cats that go to Paris!" "....the Aristocats?" "....no, not that one."

Gay Pur-ee was also famous IIRC for its backgrounds that riffed on Impressionist paintings, a la American in Paris http://www.abelevitow.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=63

[osprey_archer]

I was not even aware of the existence of Gay Pur-ee. How did I miss it?? HOW.

[kore]

I think A LOT of people mix it up with the Aristocats, because "musical - animated - cats- go to Paris -- " I saw it when I was a preteen on a weekend afternoon movie rerun (LOL, that sounds like Czarist Russia now) and didn't catch the name, and spent years afterward looking for it until a friend finally googled it for me in the early 00s. If I'd been able to remember Judy Garland was in it, I could have found it a lot earlier!