Duchess (Eva Gabor) and her three kittens live a truly pampered life in 1910 Paris. Their mistress, Madame Adelaide Bonfamille (Hermione Baddeley), has no family except for her cats and so she dotes on them all the time. Her butler, Edgar (Roddy Maude-Roxby), does his best to satisfy their every whim but secretly despises the felines.
When Madame decides to bequeath her estate to her cats, Edgar decides it's time to take matters into his own hands. He petnaps the cats and takes them out to the country to dispose of them. But things go awry when Edgar is attacked by two country hound dogs (Pat Buttram and George Lindsey) and he ends up barely escaping with his life.
The cats, meanwhile, are dumped out of his motorcycle into the stream and eventually meet up with Thomas O'Malley (Phil Harris), an alley cat who helps them get back to Paris. They are also aided in their return by their rat friend Roquefort (Sterling Holloway) and the family horse Frou-Frou (Nancy Kulp). But can they make it back home to their beloved Madame and foil Edgar's plans?
The Aristocats was the last movie that Walt Disney personally put into production and was one of the last movies produced by Disney's "Nine Old Men" who were responsible for the features from the studio's classic period of animation.
It also marks the last film that was scored by Richard and Robert Sherman during their golden years at Disney. In fact, Richard Sherman's demo of the title song "The Aristocats" helped lure French singer Maurice Chevalier out of retirement to perform the song. The Shermans also share other stories behind the songs written for the film. Unfortunately that feature is not as long as it could have been as I am sure there was much more that could have been told about the music that wasn't included on the disc.
This DVD breaks the pattern of recent Disney reissues in that it is only available in a single disc. Disney has lately been reissuing its animated classics in two-disc editions. This is either because there was not enough bonus material to justify a second disc (which is difficult to imagine given Disney's habit of archiving everything related to their films) or that because the film was not as popular as other features.
This is still a classic Disney film in my mind. It has all the elements (music, animation, story, distinctive character voices) that make a great movie. The Aristocats is a great film and is a must for any Disney fan's DVD collection.
Article comments
1 - Chris Beaumont
The lack of a second disk has nothing to do with popularity or lack of extras, it was a business decision by Disney. They said that most of the consumers had no interest, in the second disk and it confused themn when the put in the wrong one and didn't see the movie. Weird but true!