The Aristocats ***½ (1970, voices of Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, Maurice Chevalier, Sterling Holloway) – Classic Movie Review 5175

Producer-director Wolfgang Reitherman’s 1970 animated feature tells screen-writer Larry Clemmons’s story of an aristocratic cat and her three kittens, who are kidnapped and abandoned in the country by a mean butler who is afraid that they will inherit his mistress’s wealth instead of him. But an alley cat acquaintance helps the aristocratic family out. It is the 20th Disney animated feature film, and based on an original story by Tom McGowan and Tom Rowe.

Disney’s cartoon, made in the period the studio was struggling after Walt Disney’s death, is very pleasant and enjoyable, though quite modest.

It is brightly drawn and given a lift with the purringly recognisable, once familiar voices of Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, Maurice Chevalier, Sterling Holloway, Scatman Crothers, Paul Winchell, Hermione Baddeley, Vito Scotti, Nancy Culp and Monica Evans.

It follows in the footsteps of the similar Gay Purr-ee (1962).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5175

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