One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) on Netflix
G19611h 19mAdventureAnimationComedy
Pongo, a Dalmatian in London, arranges for his owner Roger to meet Anita, whose dog Perdita soon has fifteen puppies. Cruella de Vil, Anita's former schoolmate, covets them for their fur.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.3/10198,913 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes98%
Trailer
Plot summary
Pongo, a Dalmatian, shares a London flat with Roger, a songwriter who has not yet sold a tune. Convinced that both of them need company, Pongo brings Roger together with Anita, and her Dalmatian Perdita. The two couples marry in the same ceremony. Perdita later gives birth to fifteen puppies. Cruella de Vil, Anita's former schoolmate, is obsessed with fur and offers to buy the litter. Roger refuses to sell. Weeks afterward the puppies vanish from the house, taken by two thieves, Jasper and Horace Badun, whom Cruella hired. The police cannot trace them, so Pongo and Perdita send word through the Twilight Bark, a canine gossip line, asking the dogs of England to help find the litter.
Cast
- George Pellingas Danny (voice)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Story artist Bill Peet was assigned to develop the whole screenplay alone, the first time a Disney animated feature was written by a single person, and since he had never learned to type, he wrote the entire draft by hand on legal paper.
- Disney disliked the artistic look of the film and felt he was losing the "fantasy" element of his animated films; in a meeting with the animation staff about future films he dismissed its art direction and said that Ken Anderson was never going to be an art director again.
- The film became the first animated feature to earn more than $10 million on its initial release, and its success pulled Disney's animation department out of the financial slump caused by Sleeping Beauty underperforming two years earlier.
- During recording, people thought Cruella de Vil's voice actress Betty Lou Gerson was imitating Tallulah Bankhead, but Gerson said the resemblance was accidental, explaining that she and Bankhead both simply layered phony English accents over their Southern ones.
- The Xerox process was a great help towards animating the spotted dogs: according to Chuck Jones, Disney was able to complete the film for about half of what it would have cost if they had had to animate all the dogs and spots.
- Disney originally had Lisa Davis read for the role of Cruella De Vil, but she did not think she was right for the part and wanted to read the role of Anita instead; Disney agreed, and after a second reading she landed the part.
- Lisa Daniels was originally cast as the voice of Perdita and recorded about a third of her lines before getting married and moving to New York, forcing the studio to bring in Cate Bauer to finish the role.
