Lady and the Tramp

In the mid 50s, Disney produced his first animated feature that was completely original. While he had some inspiration from a short story called “Happy Dan, The Whistling Dog” in an issue of Cosmo, the idea for Lady and the Tramp came from story man Joe Grant and his own English Springer Spaniel. The resulting film was released June 22, 1955 and was the first animated feature filmed in CinemaScope widescreen.

On Christmas morning in 1909, a man (Lee Millar) gives his wife (Peggy Lee) a Cocker Spaniel that they name Lady (Barbara Luddy). At first, she enjoys a happy life with the humans and a couple of friends, Jock the Scottish Terrier (Bill Thompson) and Trusty the Bloodhound (Bill Baucom). However, the humans soon begin to treat her coldly and the other two explain that they are expecting a baby. The stray Tramp (Larry Roberts) comes by and gives his two cents that Lady will take a backseat to the baby.

The baby arrives and Lady grows fond of it, but when Aunt Sara looks after the baby and house, Lady clashes with her and her Siamese cats. She gets a muzzle put on her, but flees and is found by Tramp. They remove the muzzle and he shows Lady the life of a stray. However, Lady is caught by a dogcatcher and learns more about Tramp in the dog pound. Aunt Sarah picks her up and chains her to the doghouse. Tramp comes to apologize, but is unfruitful.

Lady soon sees a rat about to harm the baby and Tramp responds by killing it, but wakes the baby. Sarah thinks the dogs are responsible and has Tramp impounded. Lady’s owners come back when the dogcatcher is leaving and Lady leads them to the dead rat. Jock and Trusty are able to save Tramp.

The film ends at the next Christmas when Tramp is a part of the family and is raising puppies with Lady.

This movie tells a tale of love unlike any Disney movie before it. Lady and Tramp don’t fall in love when they first meet. In fact, Lady despises him at that first meeting and all he’s probably looking for is another conquest. This actually doesn’t do harm to the story. In fact, it makes it a very believable love story. It’s not until they spend some time together that they start to grow fond of each other and that still manages to happen gradually. It wouldn’t be until later that Disney would do this again to its protagonists and it would happen so scarcely that they eventually decided to deconstruct and reconstruct their use of “love at first sight.” But more on Frozen when I get there.

Then there’s the music. “Bella Note” seems like a song made for the sole purpose of getting an award, which it didn’t. But it’s still a great song. It’s not the most memorable song in the film though, which easily goes to the “Siamese Cat Song.” “He’s a Tramp” is also quite enjoyable, but other than that, the music isn’t exactly memorable.

As a whole though, the film is quite average. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but other than those three songs and the fact that love at first sight is abandoned, it’s just rather plain. Doesn’t mean it’s unlikeable though, it just means it’s decent.

Final Call: A decent love story that has the characters gradually fall in love. It’ll go in at #10, under Song of the South.