“Everybody, everybody, everybody wants to be a cat!” “Why did I listen to that O’Malley cat!”50 years ago today Walt Disney Productions’ animated classic “The Aristocats” opened in theaters. It had a premiere in LA on 12/11/70 but opened two weeks later.
One of the most important films in my life, it was “The Aristocats”, and two weeks later “The Apple Dumpling Gang”, that I saw in the Walt Disney Summer Film Festival in 1975 that made my knowledge of what paradise was like in film. With its wonderful songs, from the opening titles with Maurice Chevalier singing the title song, to “Thomas O’Malley” introducing the Phil Harris voiced character, to most of all “Everybody Wants To Be A Cat” the film is a joyous affair from beginning to end. The songs were written by the Sherman Brothers, along with Terry Gilkyson contributing “Thomas O’Malley”, and Floyd Huddleston and Al Rinker contributed “Everybody Wants To Be A Cat”.
Back in 1973 the Disney studio released an album titled “The Sounds Of Christmas” with Pete Renoudet (later Pete Renaday) as narrator and singer of the journey. It’s a depiction of a night at a household on Christmas night with Pete Renoudet as the father of the house, as well as playing Santa later on.
The title song was written by Pete Renoudet, a gorgeous heartfelt delight called “The Sounds Of Christmas”. It is an incredibly touching and deep song, telling of Christmases past. His voice is wonderfully rich, and it’s a pity he didn’t do more singing.
Tonight on TCM it’s the 1955 classic “We’re No Angels” with Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, Aldo Ray, Basil Rathbone, Leo G. Carroll and Gloria Talbot, in a delightful Christmas oriented film. Then at 10pm Deanna Durbin’s 1945 classic “Lady On A Train”, one of her best films, as well as the film where she met her 3rd and final husband Charles David. She sings “Silent Night” as beautifully as it can be sung.Both classics tonight.
Back in 1949 a new animation studio that was trying to be the non-traditional, rebellious studio (essentially anti-Disney) established their first actual character Quiney Magoo, or simply Mr. Magoo, a short sighted, at times temperamental, and often hilarious charmer voiced by the great Jim Backus. It was rather rare for an animated leading character of cartoons to be a human, so he was unique right from his being a person and not an animal. They’d have several classic cartoons, winning Academy Awards for two of the Magoos, and Mr. Magoo would star in his own feature film in 1959, the classic “1001 Arabian Nights”.
50 years ago, on 11/5/70, the classic musical version of “Scrooge”, starring the wonderful Albert Finney as Ebenezer Scrooge, premiered. The songs of Leslie Briscusse are generally quite good, especially the classic “Thank You Very Much”, and the adaptation of Handel’s Messiah that is converted into the opening and closing title tracks. The gorgeous artwork in the titles are done by the great Ronald Searle, of St. Trinian’s fame, his artwork in glorious color.
Albert Finney, only 37 when he played Scrooge in heavy make-up, is a very enjoyable little scum as Scrooge, and he has fun with the more negative aspects of the character, but also brings nice pathos with the love story, which allows him to play the character when he’s young (since Finney was younger, he could play the younger Scrooge, something most of the actor’s didn’t get to do). The song “You” is rather powerful in relaying how Scrooge’s mistakes have left him with pain.
