One Hundred and One Dalmatians (G)
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Caution: spoilers.

This came out in 1961 (about fifteen years before I was born). I've seen it on VHS and/or TV probably a number of times over the years, before I started my website. I finally watched it again to write a review in 2024.

It begins with a Dalmatian named Pongo narrating. He considers his human, a songwriter named Roger Radcliffe, to be his pet. And he decides it's time for both of them to find a mate. So he spies on various women walking their dogs until he finds a pair he likes. Then he gets Roger to take him to the park, to engineer a meet cute. Soon after that, Roger marries Anita, and Pongo "marries" Perdita, another Dalmatian. Later, Perdy gives birth to fifteen puppies. Anita's old "friend", Cruella De Vil, wants to buy the puppies, but Roger and Anita refuse to sell them. So Cruella hires burglars named Jasper and Horace to steal them. Pongo then uses a chain of dog communication to put out the word about the missing puppies. The message gets passed along from dog to dog until it reaches an Old English Sheepdog called the Colonel, who works with a horse named Captain and a cat named Sgt. Tibbs. It's Tibbs who finds not just the stolen fifteen puppies, but 99 Dalmatian puppies altogether, being held by Jasper and Horace at "the old de Vil place", aka Hell Hall. Apparently at least some of them were bought from pet stores, maybe all of them. Cruella wants Jasper and Horace to kill and skin them, so she can make fur coats. Anyway, Colonel sends word back along the communication line to Pongo and Perdy, who then set out to rescue their puppies. They decide to take all 99 of them back home, while being chased by Jasper, Horace, and Cruella. Of course, there's ultimately a happy ending, with Roger and Anita deciding to adopt all 99 puppies and move to a big house in the country. (The "one hundred and one" of the title includes Pongo and Perdita.)

Well, what can I say about all this? I was struck by something I often find strange in movies, in this case the fact that Roger and Anita are, according to Cruella, struggling financially, but are still able to afford a maid. It's also strange that Roger could apparently afford to buy a new house after having just one hit song. Speaking of which, it's a song that's all about how awful Cruella is, which I would think she could sue him over. (At the end of the movie there's still no proof that she had stolen the puppies.) It's also ironic that Jasper keeps calling Horace an idiot, whenever Horace has an idea that's actually right. And I couldn't help but wonder if any of the other puppies had been stolen, as well, in which case they should have homes to go back to. But that's not gonna happen, so hopefully Pongo and Perdy's were the only ones that were stolen. And I'm not sure if I had anything else I wanted to say about the movie, but of course it is a classic, and I thought it was pretty good.

There was a direct-to-video sequel in 2003, a live-action remake in 1996, a couple of animated TV series, and a live-action prequel film called Cruella in 2021.