Official Synopsis
The exciting tale takes place in the heart of Paris where a kind and eccentric millionairess, wills her entire estate to ‘Duchess,’ a high society cat, and her three kittens. When the bumbling butler Edgar tries to pull off the ultimate catnap caper in order to secure the fortune for himself, it’s up to alley cat Thomas O’Malley and his band of swingin’ jazz cats to save the day.
This film is so much fun, and it’s very unappreciated in the Disney scheme of things.
While I will admit that the plot point of Hermoine Baddeley’s Madame leaving all of her money and possessions to her cats is initially an insane way to start the film, even for Disney standards, the combination of colorful personalities really does make the trip worthwhile. What drives home everything is how the film introduces the main characters of Duchess and her kittens. You instantly fall in love with them the cat family. Once you laugh a little and connect with Duchess and her kids, you then have this money hungry Edgar (the butler of Madame), who decides to get rid of the cats, so he’ll be next in line for the fortune. It might all seem ridiculous until the cats are literally thrown into the country side, then it gets sad quick.
In classic Disney style, the roller coaster ride might dip a bit, but it is quickly brought back up with loads of fun comedy. This starts when Phil Harris’ tom cat O’Malley (the Alley Cat) appears and offers to help the high-class cat family. The connection between Harris and Gabor is strong. You believe his intentions to help are true, and you certainly buy into the fact that he is a father figure to Gabor’s children who are fatherless. There are major Hollywood films that can’t make a truer connection between their two characters as well as The Aristocats do it. Anyway, the true adventure of returning to Madame begins at this point.
While the comedy in this film is a strong driving point, especially the two hound dogs — enjoy them, the true treat of the film is the music. There are plenty of musical pieces that will have you singing well after the film is over. The Sherman Brothers, who also did the music for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, provided the music for this one and it’s very memorable.
Anyway, Aristocats starts out just a bit rough, but it really comes together when the cats have to go on the main adventure to return home. This is definitely one of my favorite films from the Disney collection. It may not have been as high profile as other Disney releases, but it’s just as memorable.
As for the Blu-ray portion of this film, this is one of the roughest transfers I’ve seen from Disney. I’m sure the source film was probably a bit rough, but you can definitely see graininess and artifacts in the film, probably more prominent now it’s HD. You can see white hits in the film, some dirtiness that somehow ended up on the transfer and scratches. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a total loss, but it’s pretty rough.
The audio is thankfully clean, crisp and comes to you in 5.1 DTS-HD, which is a powerful part of this Blu-ray release. It sounds great in a 5.1 setup.
Finally, the special features look like this:
(Blu-ray)
– The Lost Open
– Deleted Song – “She Never Felt Alone”
– The Sherman Brothers: The Aristocats of Disney Songs
– The Great Cat Family (Excerpt)
– Bath Day
– “Oui Oui Marie” Music Video
– Disney Song Selection
(DVD)
– Disney Virtual Kitten
– Virtual Kitten DVD-ROM
– The Aristocats Fun with Language game
– The Great Cat Family
– The Aristocats Scrapbook
– Deleted Song
This is what a Blu-ray release should look like. Tons of special features to keep the Aristocats magic going long after the film is over. On the Blu-ray, You get some great featurettes, excellent Sherman Brothers songs. On the DVD you have more interactive features that will keep the kids entertained. Combined, you get a very strong set of special features across the board that make this release more than worthwhile.