Disney Movie Challenge: Lady and the Tramp (1955)

DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE

Lady and the Tramp

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 58 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Frozen II in 2020. 

As the 1950’s rolled along Disney kept turning out would be classics.  Cinderella was a huge hit, Alice in Wonderland a huge disappointment, and Peter Pan somewhere in the middle.  Then 1955 came along and Lady and the Tramp came out.  This would go on to be Disney’s most profitable movie to date.  It is also one of the rare original stories for a Disney Animated film.  

The story itself is pretty generic.  A girl from an upper class family meets an orphan boy who lives on the wrong side of the tracks.  Just swap the characters out for cute dogs, a villainous dog catcher, and some mischievous cats and you got Lady and the Tramp.  Sticking to familiar story elements without having to be bound by preexisting material freed the animators up to be as creative as they wanted to be.  Lady is a female Cocker Spaniel who lives in a loving home. Things start to change when a baby comes and the Aunt that is there to watch the baby and Lady brings her cats.  The cats make Lady look bad and the Aunt takes her to the pet store to get a muzzle.  But Lady escapes and runs into Tramp who shows her how the other side lives “without a leash”. They have a memorable spaghetti romantic dinner and begin to fall in love.  Lady then learns that Tramp has had many loves in the past and decided to go back home.  Tramp comes to tell her that this time is different.  When a rat gets into the baby's room and Lady can’t get it because she is on a leash Tramp goes and kills the Rat.  When everyone realizes what Tramp was doing he is adopted by the family and they live happily ever after.   

The characters are fun and suck you into the story.  Lady and the Tramp probably has some of the most fully formed characters in a Disney film yet.  While it’s a quick romance you still feel that both Lady and the Tramp have personality, and while we don’t know a whole lot about Tramp’s history we can discern a lot by what he says. Even the side characters like Jock, Trusty, and Peg, while cliched, still feel authentic and characters  you could connect too.  Earlier Disney movies mostly focused on one or two characters and the side characters were even more one dimensional.   

The animation does a good job of creating the world.    The first thing you notice in the film is that it is shown from a dog’s point of view so you never see the human’s faces.  I thought it was a clever way to show perspective.  To do this the animators got creative and made a replica of the house so they could study what it would look like from a dogs perspective.  As the movie progresses it doesn't keep up the perspective and eventually you see Lady's owners faces.  The animators also did a great job of creating two distinct worlds. There is the  world of privilege with backyards, loving family, and plentiful food contrasted with the world of street dogs living by themselves and scrounging for meals.   

Part way through the animation process a decision was made to release the film on Cinemascope widescreen.  This created an extra challenge for the animators because they had to go back and fill up more screen so it didn’t feel stretched out.  They also had to redo it again because when it came time to release the film there weren’t many Cinemascope Cinemas around and to get a wide release they had to release another cut in traditional Academy ratio.    

Overall: This is one of the first Disney VHS tapes I had as a kid so it’s one of the Disney Films I am most familiar and have the strongest connection too so nostaligia might play a factor in my feelings for this movie.  I thought it was a fun movie that moves along well and the animation does a great job of creating a world that feels lived in. I really liked the beginning with the dogs point of view and kind of wish that they kept that up for the whole movie. I enjoyed this one as a kid and still enjoyed it as an adult, nothing earth shattering but simply enjoyable.  

Random Facts:

The first Disney Animated Feature released by Disney’s new distribution company Buena Vista Distribution. 

Hugely popular at the time. Second highest grossing Disney movie at the time of release, second only  to Snow White. Yet most critics did not like it.  

First animated film released in Cinemascope

Disney didn’t like the spaghetti eating scene but it has gone on to become one of the most memorable scenes in film history.  

Peggy Lee wrote and performed songs for the movie.   She sings: "He's a Tramp", "La La Lu", "The Siamese Cat Song", and "What Is a Baby?". The character Peg who sings “He’s a Tramp” was named and designed to look like her.  

Peggy Lee sued Disney in 1988 for royalties from the sales of the VHS release. She ended up winning the court case and won $2.3 million when the case was finally over in 1991. Here is a great article about the court case. https://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/peggy-lee-war-disney-lady-and-the-tramp-113688.html