Lady and the Tramp (1955)

Hello Everyone! Sorry that there wasn't any post last week. We had to take some time off for a very special event, so we held off our review for this week. Talking about our review, this week we've got Lady and the Tramp. This is a fun movie about dogs in love in the city. If you haven't seen it, you definitely should, as it's a classic. 

Original Poster Sourced via IMDB

Summary: Lady is Cocker Spaniel living the high life in her suburban home. But her life is shaken up when her owners have a baby. Once the baby is born, she warms up to him and protects him. Things seem like they'll be alright, but when her owners leave town, she and the child are left in the care of their aunt. The aunt's cats torment Lady and the baby, causing a scene the cultivates in the aunt taking Lady to get a muzzle. At this point, Lady escapes and meets up with a street dog named Tramp. They spend a night out on the town, and slowly fall in love with each other. The next day, she's returning home, but, due to Tramp's recklessness, Lady gets caught by the dogcatcher. Tramp escapes. In the pound, she meets a bunch of other dogs that know Tramp who tell her about his previous girlfriends and explain that she's the next in a long line. She gets picked up by the aunt and is chained up outside. Tramp comes around to explain himself and Lady rebuffs him, but soon after, a rat sneaks into the house to attack the baby. Tramp comes to the rescue and they kill the rat and save the baby. At first, this is misunderstood by the aunt and the owners and Tramp is sent to the pound. They find out that truth and go to pick up Tramp, adopt him and Lady and Tramp live together happily ever after in their home.

First thing first, this movie is beautiful. The animation and art design are better than any movie previous. Previously, I've considered Sleeping Beauty to be the pinnacle of Disney's traditional animation. I still think that's true, but Lady and the Tramp is very comparable. Really, it's not that surprising, as Sleeping Beauty is next in line, but I guess I never realized how good this movie looked. On the other hand, it has some stylistic elements that remind me of Disney's films after the change in animation starting with One Hundred and One Dalmatians. It gives the city scenes a realistic, dirty feeling, so I think's its effective.

The story, for me, is a bit difficult to understand. Or, at the very least, to explain. I was able to follow it through the movie, but after the movie, it's difficult for me to relay it. In part, I think that's because there's no clear "Hero's Journey" type structure. Instead, a lot of the movie is spent setting up the rest of the movie. For example, we see when Lady is first adopted and when she's living in bliss before the child and her talking with her friends and her meeting Tramp before the baby comes. They're all good scenes, but a lot of the movie is devoted to this time. For me, the heart of the movie is the night on the town the Lady spends with Tramp. Unfortunately, I don't feel this time gets enough of the movie to grow. This is supposed to be a love story of sorts, but with one trip to the zoo and dinner at an Italian joint, and we're supposed to feel that they're doggy-soulmates.

What I think is very interesting about this movie is the view of its time period that is provided. The movie takes place in 1905, but the themes and attitudes reflect that of the 1950's when this movie was made. In a way, this movie captures a changing set of attitudes in the 1950's. The story is similar to others I've seen, where an upper class young woman is whisked away by a lower class man who might have a questionable background and they fall in love, instead of her marrying someone "sensible."This isn't only relatable to the 1950's, but I think that there was a lot of concern for this sort of thing during the '50's because of the destruction and blending of social classes during that time, as well as the rise of the beatniks.

On a similar theme, there's also the scene that, at first, seemed very strange to me, but when I understood the context, it made more sense. After Lady's night with Tramp, her friend dogs, Jock and Trusty, offer to take her in to their home. At first, I thought that they were just offering to take her in because she was afraid that her owners would throw her out of the house. But, as I take it, at the time it was understood that Lady would be dishonored for spending a night alone with a stray dog and they were offering to marry her to restore her honor. Since it went over my head originally, I guess that's an interesting sign of how things have changed between then and now.

All in all, I feel that this is a lovely film. Its absolutely beautiful so, if nothing else, watch it just for the visual experience. Other than that, the movie is fun and compelling, though I would say it's hard for me to recall it entirely. As such, I'd say it was good and fun, but maybe the impact on me wasn't that deep. Just to reiterate, I would definitely recommend everyone check it out again. We'll be back on schedule next week with Sleeping Beauty.

-CJ

Lady and the Tramp is another one of those Disney films that I’ve mostly forgotten. I could tell you I watched it over and over again as a kid, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell you what it was about. Re-watching this movie was a treat. The art in this is phenomenal and the animation is really top notch. It’s hard to find any kind of issue with this film and that’s impressive when you consider the issues the studio faced when producing this movie.

First and foremost, let’s take a look into how Lady and the Tramp was produced. Lady was actually based off a real dog of one of Disney's employees, Joe Grant. He explained to Walt that his dog had gotten “shoved aside” since he’d had a baby. He ended up showing some artwork he’d produced of his dog; Walt liked the sketches and wanted to plot out a movie based on them. However the idea never fully got off the ground during the 30’s and 40’s, due there not being enough action, and Lady being too sweet. Grant ended up leaving Disney studios in 1949 and several years afterward Disney ended up pulling out Grants original sketches to re-work them into a movie.

Lady and the Tramp is actually based in part off a book by Ward Green called “Happy Dan, The Cynical Dog” published in 1945. This is what gave Disney the idea to re-work the movie and what was eventually put to film. The main story finally came together in 1953, and production was able to finally finish the movie. Ward Green actually worked with Disney and wrote a novelization of the film that was released a few years before the film so the general public would know what to expect. Unfortunately, Green didn’t receive any kind of film credit for his story work and his role in the film was left behind.

Lady and the Tramp really upped the bar for animation. The movie was the first animated feature to be animated in Cinemascope (this was a tool used to making wide-screen movies in the 1950’s – 1970’s). This meant that the shots had to be wider and that more detail was demanded. Along with this, it made it hard for animators to get close up shots of the characters and led to the need for groups to be shown on screen so that things wouldn’t appear to sparse.

Along with the new widescreen and the issues with characters, better and more detailed backgrounds had to be incorporated into this movie. Originally, Mary Blair was supposed to be the background artist for the film, but she left the studio in 1953. A new background artist by the name of Claude Coats was put on production and he ended up making changes to the frames. He ended up changing the perspective to a dogs view vs. a humans view and this works out incredibly well. We rarely see the faces of any humans, and most furniture or housing is cut low, so we would only really see what a dog would see. Thinking back on this, it’s actually very reminiscent of old Tom and Jerry cartoons, where Mammy Two Shoes interacts with Tom. We’re never allowed to see her from the waste up. The most we normally get is her hands coming down to swat at Tom.

Disney studio took a page out of Bambi for how to animate their dogs. The studio gathered different types of dogs to study how they acted and moved. This really helps to give life to the animation. You can almost forget you’re watching painted cells and imagine you’re just watching a dog in its normal routine. Along with the fluid movement, we get another call back to Bambi in the form of the large expressive eyes. This really helps invoke feeling and emotion in the dogs themselves. You can easily tell when they’re angry or scared.

In general there’s a ton of improvement here when compared to Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. Where the other two movies had bold and bulky outlines that hindered immersion. The outlines in Lady and the Tramp are not overly dark or overly thick. It lends a more seamless view of the character and brings in some more life into the picture. You can really see the wrinkles on Trusty or the scruffy muzzle on Tramp and it’s not blurred out by overly thick outlines.

I really don’t know what else I can say about the animation at this point. Out of all of the Disney films, it’s easily the best detailed and one of the best animated up to this point. Everything feels incredibly smooth and natural and it’s hard to point out any kind of issues here.

The main issues I would say I have with this film would be the plot and the music. The plot itself is easy enough to follow, but there’s a lot going on, so things end up feeling rushed here and there. I will say that it doesn’t suffer nearly as much in this department as Peter Pan did. I just wish there had been some more room for character development.

The other issue I have with this film is the music. Maybe it’s just me but I feel like a majority of the songs are pretty forgettable. That’s not to say that the music is bad in anyway. The score for the film fits the feeling of every situation but scores aren’t meant to be remembered as much as show tunes. I think the issue I have with the music is that it’s almost always too calm and relaxed, so there’s not much to snag your brain and put an earworm in it.

Even given these slight issues, this film is really worth the watch. It’s a fun watch and a gorgeous piece of artwork. I would easily say out of all the films we’ve seen up to this point, it’s the best animated and the best detailed film we’ve watched up to this point and one of the best that Disney has produced. We’ll see a return to the land of Cinemascope next week when we take a look at Sleeping Beauty.

-AJ

*On a Side Note*

Did you know that the spaghetti eating scene between Lady and Tramp was almost cut? Walt thought the idea was stupid, and unrealistic. (I will say it is unrealistic in that any dog would have that plate cleared in a matter of seconds…) However, animator Frank Thomas was so against this that he actually animated the entire scene himself! When it was shown to Walt, he ended up liking how romanticized the scene turned out to be and allowed to keep the scene in the movie.