One Hundred And One Dalmatians (1961)
Based on the 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith.
Aspiring songwriter Roger Radcliffe lives in London, in a bachelor flat with his pet Dalmatian, Pongo. Deciding both of them need a "mate", Pongo watches women and their dogs in the street. Noticing Anita and her Dalmatian Perdita, he drags Roger to the park to arrange a meeting. Roger and Anita fall in love, and soon marry, with Pongo and Perdita attending.
The pair hires a nanny and moves to a small townhouse near Regent's Park. After Perdita becomes pregnant with a litter of 15 puppies, Anita's fur-obsessed former schoolmate, Cruella de Vil, arrives and demands to know when the puppies will arrive. Roger responds by writing a jazzy song mocking her (“Cruella de Vil”). When the puppies are born, Cruella returns, demanding to buy them. Roger firmly denies her request; Cruella swears revenge, and storms out. As the puppies grow up, they watch a TV show about a dog, Thunderbolt, as he advertises Kanine Krunchies (“Kanine Krunchies”).
A few months later, Cruella hires brothers Horace and Jasper Baddun, two burglars, to steal the puppies. When Scotland Yard is unable to find the puppies, Pongo and Perdita use the "Twilight Bark", a canine gossip line, to solicit help from the other dogs in London. Colonel, an old English sheepdog, along with his compatriot Sergeant Tibbs, a tabby cat, investigate the nearby "Old De Vil Place", where puppies had been heard barking two nights earlier. Tibbs learns they are going to be made into dog-skin fur coats, after which Colonel sends word back to London. Pongo and Perdita leave through a back window and begin a long cross-country journey, crossing an icy river and running through the snow towards Suffolk. Meanwhile, Tibbs overhears Cruella ordering the Baddun brothers to kill the puppies that night out of fear the police will soon find them. In response, Tibbs helps the puppies escape through a hole in the wall, but the Baddun brothers notice and give chase. Pongo and Perdita break into the house and confront the Baddun brothers just as they are about to kill the puppies. While the adult dogs attack the two men, Colonel and Tibbs guide the puppies from the house. After a happy reunion with their own puppies, Pongo and Perdita discover there are 86 more puppies with them. Shocked at Cruella's plans, they decide to adopt all of them, certain that Roger and Anita would never reject them.
The Dalmatians start their homeward trek, pursued by the Baddun brothers. They take shelter from a blizzard in a dairy farm with a friendly collie and three cows, then make their way to Dinsford, where they meet a Black Labrador waiting for them in a blacksmith's shop. Cruella and the Baddun brothers arrive, prompting Pongo to have his entire family roll in a sooty fireplace to disguise themselves as other Labradors. The Labrador helps them board a moving van bound for London, but melting snow falls on one of the pups and clears the soot off of him. Enraged, Cruella pursues the van in her car and rams it, but the Badduns, who try to cut it off from above, end up colliding with her. Both vehicles crash into a ditch. Cruella yells in frustration at the pair as the van drives off.
In London, a depressed Radcliffes and nanny try to enjoy Christmas, and the wealth they have acquired from the song about Cruella, which has become a big radio hit. The soot-covered Dalmatians suddenly flood the house. Upon removing the soot and counting the massive family of dogs, Roger chooses to use his songwriting royalties to buy a big house in the country so they can keep all 101 Dalmatians (“Dalmatian Plantation”).
TRIVIA
Technology
One Hundred and One Dalmatians is the first Disney animated feature film to use Copyflo, invented by Xerox, which allowed Disney animators to copy their drawings and print them on celluloid paper, instead of having someone paint the lines by hand. This greatly reduced the number of cell painters needed. However this would introduce a scratchy outline style inherent to the technology.
In addition, a series of model cars were built and were photographed and printed on celluloid paper using the same Xerox technique.
Visual Style
Since the “scratchiness” of Xerox would not have fit the cleaner Disney animation style used until then, a more graphic, angular style was chosen for One Hundred and One Dalmatians. This visual style embraces modernism and gutsy graphic style.
Easter Egg(s)
During the Twilight Bark sequence, Peg, Jacques, Bull, and a silhouette of both Lady and Tramp from Lady and the Tramp appears. Later in the sequence, Peg from Lady and the Tramp also appears in a pet shop store window.