The Aristocats

1970 "A tune-filled animated extravaganza."
7.1| 1h18m| G| en| More Info
Released: 24 December 1970 Released
Producted By: Walt Disney Productions
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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When Madame Adelaide Bonfamille leaves her fortune to Duchess and her children—Bonfamille’s beloved family of cats—the butler plots to steal the money and kidnaps the legatees, leaving them out on a country road. All seems lost until the wily Thomas O’Malley Cat and his jazz-playing alley cats come to the aristocats’ rescue.

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Director

Wolfgang Reitherman

Production Companies

Walt Disney Productions

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The Aristocats Audience Reviews

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.
Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Caryl It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.
lizafaro Watching this movie when it was first released, it left a good feeling already: a simple story, but a very happy one, also helped with a nice musical soundtrack. Through the years I enjoyed watching it several times, and my appreciation grew . The characters are funny, the animation is nice, like 101 damations, the style is nice and this pic I share amongst the best animated movies from Disney: not sentimental and just plain fun to watch. Recommended !
Filipe Neto When a very rich Parisian lady decides to leave all her assets to her cats, her jealous butler decides to make them disappear so he could have it all. Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, it features a soundtrack composed by George Bruns.We are probably facing one of the most underrated films of Disney Studios. It has a simple script, based on an inheritance dispute between a butler and a family of cats. The voice actors are good and the work of designers is great. The use of softer tones, combined with a firm but discreet pencil, make it very elegant and charming. The film has some important moral messages: the union of the family, as well as help to those in peril, are values ​​visible in the way the cats help each other. On the other hand, the adverse consequences that the butler suffers show the children the punishment for his envy and greed. In the film, the "dating" between Duchess and O'Malley recalls the dating scenes made twenty years earlier for "The Lady and the Tramp".One of the most appreciated features of this film is the soundtrack, which contains a number of interesting musical moments, from the song of Siamese cats to the song that kittens sing at the piano. But the most striking piece is "Everybody wants to be a cat." It comes near the climax and it's a very fun jazz, played by the stray cats.
flavia_cj I'll receive many fingers down, but I need to say that this is by far the worst traditional Disney animation ever. "Oliver & Company" (1988) and "The Black Cauldron"(1985) seems like a "Spirited Away" in the side of Aristocats.The only good and inspired thing about Aristocats is the musical sequence "Everybody Wants to be a Cat". Only this. Let's look at the rest:The characters are awfully dull. O'Malley is just a cat version of Tramp. Duchess is a sympathetic character though, but only she can't save the movie. The animation is just terrible, full of recycled scenes, and low quality xerography, compared with "101 Dalmatians" (1961) and "Jungle Book"(1967). "Robin Hood"(1973) also had a poor animation, but compensated this with a more entertaining and funny story to follow. But what's the story of Aristocats? It's a rip-off of "Lady and the Tramp" and "101 Dalmatians" version cats. The plot is dull, full of random and unbearably tedious moments, like Edgar being chased by generic dogs, and the group of cats talking with annoying geese, that not even a child with 7 years would have the patience to finish watching. Do you remember Cruella Devil, a woman who wanted to kill 99 puppies Dalmatians for wear their skin? Yes, she's a true villain. But in Aristocats, we have Edgar, the most dumb villain I've ever seen in my life. Why the heck Edgar decided get rid of the cats BEFORE Madame Bonfamille die? And why the heck he gave sleeping pills to cats and went to a other place, when he simply could arrest all cats in a bag and drown them? With these questions, we can see how Edgar is a dumb villain and how fragile and nonsense is the script of this film.
Steve Pulaski NOTE: This film was recommended to me by Lizz Rutter for "Steve Pulaski Sees It." Disney's The Aristocats is such a charming, almost compelling story that I wished the narrative didn't need to interrupt itself so sporadically with jazz-fueled musical numbers amongst not only cats, but dogs and a variety of other animals. The musical interjections, that push this Disney film over the edge into being a full-blown musical like most of their films in this respective era, unfortunately disrupts the magic these feline characters manage to conjure up when they are just trying to sift their way through their poor circumstance.The result, as one can expect, is a film that you say "aww" to over a dozen times and a film that has you either tapping your foot or rocking your legs in melodic harmony with the music. The Aristocats is a simplistic story, concerning a wealthy woman named Madame Adelaide (voiced by Hermione Baddeley) in 1910 Paris that has just signed a will granting her lavish estate to her cat Dutchess (Eva Gabor) and her three kittens. This move greatly upsets her jealous, hot-headed English butler Edgar (Roddy Maude-Roxby), who has slaved away at serving Madame Adelaide for years and has ostensibly gotten nothing in return. As a result, Edgar conjures up a plan to get rid of the cats so when Adelaide dies, he can inherit the estate. He rounds up the four cats and throws them into the street, where the four homebody felines must learn to survive in order to be reconnected with their Madame.On the long, rainy, and uncertain road back home, Duchess meets a gentle feral cat named Thomas O'Malley (Phil Harris), who has been living off the land for many years. O'Malley is kind to Duchess, as he recognizes their predicament, but most important to note is how well he responds to her kittens, playing with them and assisting them whenever they need it. Both him and Duchess strike up an affable relationship as the gang tries to get back home, but not without a few musical numbers slowing them down along the way.The Aristocats, in a strange way, could almost be seen as a parable for single parent-dating or "getting back out there," especially for a woman who has children, which is no easy process. The film showcases such a challenge with admirable conviction and a willingness to have long stretches without musical numbers or any kind of distractions in order to allow this relationship to build. For an animated film in the modern day, even some of the best ones stamped with the Disney or Disney Pixar approval can't help but feel a bit scatterbrained in some sense, stepping over their toes to try and cover all the bases in subplots, character relations, and cause-and-effect relationships that are questionably worthy of being a focus in said film.The Aristocats was birthed in a time when animation took a more relaxed and reserved approach, which is why we could see Duchess, O'Malley, and Duchess's kittens do everything from hop aboard a train to meet two snobby swans in a river below a bridge. This kind of fluid, real-time focus on the characters makes the process and narrative development all the more natural. Of course, the film cuts back to Madame Adelaide desperately trying to find her cats, along with Edgar's conniving plan to make sure the furry beasts will never come home, and the jazzy musical numbers occasionally get in the way of a film that's already extremely short (a mere seventy-eight minutes). However, nothing truly distracts from The Aristocats being simple, effervescent entertainment with a plethora of fun characters, a timely moral, and, okay, some pretty catchy jazz numbers as well.Voiced by: Edna Gabor, Phil Harris, Hermione Baddeley, and Roddy Maude-Roxby. Directed by: Wolfgang Reitherman.