The Aristocats


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Not to be confused with The Aristocrats (film).
The Aristocats
Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman
Produced by Winston Hibler
Wolfgang Reitherman
Written by Ken Anderson
Larry Clemmons
Eric Cleworth
Vance Garry
Tom McGowan
Tom Rowe
Julius Svendsen
Frank Thomas
Ralph Wright
Starring Phil Harris
Eva Gabor
Liz English
Gary Dubin
Dean Clark
Sterling Holloway
Roddy Maude-Roxby
Music by George Bruns
Richard and Robert Sherman
Georges Bizet (songs)
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures
Release date(s) December 11, 1970 (premiere)
December 24, 1970 (regular)
Running time 78 minutes
Country United States
Language English, French
Budget $4,000,000 (estimated)

The Aristocats is a 1970 animated feature produced and released by Walt Disney Productions. It is the twentieth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. Based on a story by Tom McGowan and Tom Rowe, the story revolves around a family of aristocratic cats, and how an alley cat acquaintance helps them after a butler has kidnapped them to gain his mistress' fortune which was meant to go to them. It was originally released to theaters by Buena Vista Distribution on December 11, 1970. The title is a pun on the word aristocrats.

The film's basic idea - an animated romantic musical comedy about talking cats in France - had previously been used in the UPA animated feature Gay Purr-ee.

Contents

Plot

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Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. (September 2008)

Set in Paris, France, in 1910, the story centers around a mother cat named Duchess and her three kittens Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse. The cats live in the mansion of retired opera singer Madame Adelaide Bonfamille, along with her English butler Edgar. Also living on the estate are Frou-Frou (a horse) and Roquefort (a mouse who is a good friend of the cats).

Madame Adelaide, early on, settles her will with her lawyer Georges Hautecourt, an aged, eccentric old friend of hers, stating that she wishes Edgar to look after her beloved cats until they die and then inherit the fortune himself. Edgar hears this from his own room and believes (based on the fable that cats have nine lives) that he will be dead before he inherits Madame Adelaide's fortune, and plots to remove the cats from a position of inheritance. He sedates the cats by putting an entire bottle of sleeping pills into the cat's food and then heads out into the country side to dispose of them. However, two hound dogs named Napoleon and Lafayette, attack him. After the conflict, Edgar escapes, leaving behind his umbrella, hat, the cats' bed-basket, and the sidecar of his motorcycle. The cats are left in the country side, while Madame Adelaide, Roquefort, and Frou-Frou discover their absence. In the morning, Duchess meets a friendly, romantic, cheerful, self-absorbed, jolly alley cat named Abraham D'Lacey Giuseppe Casey Thomas O'Malley, who flirts with her and ultimately offers to guide her and the kittens to Paris. From their meeting onward, Duchess is enamored of the handsome Thomas O'Malley (as he is most frequently called) and he with her; the kittens, too, are enraptured though he takes a moment to be fond of them.

The cats have a struggle returning to the city, briefly hitchiking on the back of a milk cart before being chased off by the driver. Marie subsequently falls into a river and is saved by O'Malley. They then meet a pair of English geese, Amelia and Abigail Gabble, who are traveling for Paris. The group head off, marching like geese, until they reach Paris and come across the girls' drunken Uncle Waldo. Abigail and Amelia then depart to take Waldo home. Traveling across the rooftops of the city, the cats meet Scat Cat and his band, close friends to O'Malley, who perform the song Everybody Wants to Be a Cat. After the band have departed and the kittens lie in bed, O'Malley and Duchess spend the evening on a nearby rooftop and talk, while the kittens listen at a windowsill. The subject of their conversation is the question of whether Duchess may stay and marry Thomas. Eventually, she turns him down, largely out of loyalty to Madame Adelaide. Edgar, meanwhile, retrieves his sidecar, umbrella, and hat from Napoleon and Layafette (who had made beds out of them) with some difficulty.

The cats make it back to the mansion, O'Malley departs sadly. Edgar sees Duchess and Kittens coming and captures them, places them in a sack and briefly hides them in an oven. The cats tell Roquefort to pursue O'Malley and get help. He does so, whereupon O'Malley races back to the mansion, ordering Roquefort to find Scat Cat and his gang. Edgar places the cats in a trunk which he plans to send to Timbuktu, Africa. O'Malley, Scat Cat and his gang, and Frou-Frou all fight Edgar, while Roquefort frees Duchess and kittens. In the end, Edgar is tipped into the trunk, locked inside, and sent to Timbuktu himself. Madame Adelaide's will is rewritten to exclude Edgar and include O'Malley; simultaneously, Madame Adelaide starts a charity foundation providing a home for all of Paris' stray cats. The grand opening thereof, to which most of the major characters come, features Scat Cat's band, who perform a reprise of Everybody Wants to Be a Cat.

Releases

International release dates

Theatrical re-releases and home video

The Aristocats was re-released to theaters on December 19, 1981 and April 10, 1987. It was released on VHS in Europe on January 1, 1990.

It was first released on VHS in North America in the Masterpiece Collection series on April 24, 1996 and DVD on April 4, 2000 in the Gold Classic Collection line. The Aristocats had its Gold Collection disc quietly discontinued in 2006.

A new single-disc Special Edition DVD (previously announced as a 2-Disc set) was released on February 5, 2008.

Characters and Cast

The Aristocats uses the funny animals convention of talking animals who are understood by all other species except humans. Species featured include Cat, Dog, Mouse, Frog, Horse, Goose, and Rooster. Specific characters are as follows:

  • Abraham de Lacey Giuseppe Casey Thomas O'Malley - an alley cat who befriends Duchess and the kittens and becomes Duchess's mate. Goes by the shorter name of "Thomas O'Malley" - Phil Harris
  • Duchess - a white-furred "aristocat" that lives with Madame Bonfamille. Very adherent to her own codes of right and wrong. - Eva Gabor
  • Marie - Duchess's white-furred, somewhat prissy daughter, a meetable character at Walt Disney World, the Tokyo Disney Resort, and Hong Kong Disneyland. Marie also makes a cameo appearance in Hong Kong Disneyland's version of It's a Small World. - Liz English
  • Berlioz - Duchess's black-furred son, named after the famous composer. Mischievous and prone to sibling rivalry. - Dean Clark
  • Toulouse - Duchess's ginger-furred son, named after a town in Southern France and the artist Henry Toulouse-Lautrec. Prone to self-aggrandizing shows of bravura. Also the only one of the Aristocats to deduce that Edgar was trying to kill them. - Gary Dubin
  • Edgar Balthazar - Madame Bonfamille's avaricious, but slightly comic butler - Roddy Maude-Roxby
  • Roquefort - a mouse who lives with Duchess and her kittens - Sterling Holloway
  • Scat Cat - a leader of an alley cat band and a friend of O'Malley's - Scatman Crothers
  • Madame Adelaide Bonfamille - the owner of Duchess and her kittens - Hermione Baddeley
  • Napoleon and Lafayette - Two hound dogs who attack Edgar. Napoleon (not to be confused with Napoleon Bonaparte), is a Bloodhound, while Lafayette is a Basset Hound. The two organize themselves to act as a hierarchy of soldiers, of which Napoleon insists himself to be the one more highly ranked. A running joke appears wherein Lafayette makes a suggestion, only to have Napoleon pull rank by insisting that, as leader, he will decide what action the two shall take – only to do exactly what Lafayette suggested. - Pat Buttram (Napoleon) George Lindsey (Lafayette)
  • Frou Frou - Madame Bonfamille's horse. A loyal friend to Roquefort, Duchess, and the kittens. - Nancy Kulp
  • Amelia and Abigail Gabble - Two English geese (twin sisters) who save O'Malley from drowning - Monica Evans and Carole Shelley; who also voiced together in Disney's Robin Hood.
  • Uncle Waldo - Amelia and Abigail's Uncle. He was nearly served as a meal at the La Petite Cafe in Paris. Before escaping, he was marinated in white wine, which made him drunk while meeting the other characters. - Bill Thompson.
  • Georges Hautecourt - Madame Bonfamille's elderly lawyer. Madame tells her lawyer her will (also heard by Edgar). Georges is brash and lively for his age, though he describes himself as "not as spry as I was when I was 80 aye", indicating that he is older than 80, and perhaps is even older than Madame Bonfamille. Madame refers to him as her "oldest and dearest friend" - Charles Lane
  • Shun Gon - a Chinese Siamese cat, who plays the drums and the piano using chopsticks - Paul Winchell
  • Hit Cat - an English cat, having wild blonde hair - Lord Tim Hudson
  • Peppo - an Italian cat, wearing a look-alike Robin Hood hat and a red scarf - Vito Scotti
  • Billy Bass - a grey, longhaired Russian cat, who plays the double bass in Scat Cat's band. Very outspoken, sometimes in imperfect English - Thurl Ravenscroft
  • The Milkman - Milkman who chases O'Malley and Aristocats out of his milk truck, in which they had been hitchhiking - Peter Renaday

Cast & Crew

Writers:Ken Anderson,Larry Clemmons,Eric Cleworth,Vance Garry,Tom McGowan,Tom Rowe,Julius Svendsen,Frank Thomas,Ralph Wright Director: Wolfgang Reitherman
Producers: Wolfgang Reitherman and Winston Hilber
Sound Effects: Dan MacManus and Dick Lucas
Directing Animators: Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston and John Lounsbery
Music: George Bruns
Songs: Richard and Robert Sherman, Terry Gilkyson, Floyd Huddleston, and Al Rinker
Orchestration: Walter Sheets
Story: Larry Clemmons, Vance Gerry, Ken Anderson, Frank Thomas, Eric Cleworth, Jullus Svendsen and Ralph Wright
Production Design: Ken Anderson
Character Animation: Hal King, Eric Larson, Eric Cleworth, Jullus Svendsen, Fred Hellmich and Walt Stanchfield
Production Manager: Don Duckwall
Film Editor: Tom Acosta
Music Editor: Evelyn Kennedy
Based on a story by Tom McGowan and Tom Rowe

Soundtrack listing

  1. "The Aristocats" - Maurice Chevalier
  2. "Scales and Arpeggios" - Liz English, Gary Dubin, Dean Clark, Robie Lester
  3. "Thomas O'Malley Cat" - Phil Harris
  4. "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" - Phil Harris, Scatman Crothers, Thurl Ravenscroft, Vito Scotti, Paul Winchell
  5. "She Never Felt Alone" - Robie Lester
  6. "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat (reprise)" - Phil Harris, Scatman Crothers, Thurl Ravenscroft, Vito Scotti, Paul Winchell, Ruth Buzzi, Bill Thompson

On Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic, this includes "Thomas O'Malley Cat" on the purple disc and "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" on the orange disc. On Disney's Greatest Hits, this includes "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" on the red disc.

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