Cruella De Vil is easily one of the greatest screen villains the Walt Disney company brought to life. In many ways I could make an argument for her to be int the top 10 all-time screen villains. It is her dynamic presence that makes 101 Dalmatians such a joy to watch. Sure, there’s a fun story and a lot of cute puppies, but the human element of the villain here makes this film as good as it is.
Mr. and Mrs. Darling have two adult dalmatians along with a litter of 15 puppies. Enter De Vil who is wishing to make a new fur coat out of dalmatian puppy fur. These 15 puppies are the final ones needed. We get a number of other animals who participate in the rescue effort, a couple of henchman who are played up for comic relief, and essentially a very simple story that runs 80 minutes. Yes, the whole of the story could have been told in half the time, but this turns into a good romp that is enjoyable and holds up under repeat viewings.
Now on Blu-ray we get the film looking and sounding better than ever. Crisp and clear 101 Dalmatians almost looks as if it were made recently instead of over 50 years ago. Honestly, I was expecting the film to get a Blu-ray release earlier than this. This is a film well worth owning and having in a home library.
Special features are pretty good starting off with a selection of featurettes that were available on previous DVD editions. These include a look at the drawing of the film, musical numbers that weren’t used and more. Four new special features make their debut with this Blu-ray release. There is an episode of “Disneyland” (Remember when Disney had a television series? instead of its own series of networks?) that focuses on dogs, along with an appearance of this film. There is a forced “this is a cool movie” featuring Disney star Cameron Boyce that isn’t worth the time investment. More interesting is the newer look back at the making of the film by some of the people that were there. It is far too short for what it is. It would have been nice to have this run the whole of the feature as an audio commentary with storyboards for picture in picture. Lastly there’s a “new” episode of the show that appears within the film.
101 Dalmatians on Blu-ray is worth the price of admission. Go ahead, pick it up.