Lady and the Tramp
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| Lady and the Tramp | |
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| Directed by | Clyde Geronimi Wilfred Jackson Hamilton Luske |
| Produced by | Walt Disney |
| Written by | Ward Greene (novel) Erdman Penner Joe Rinaldi Ralph Wright Don DaGradi Joe Grant (concept) |
| Starring | Peggy Lee Barbara Luddy Larry Roberts Bill Thompson Bill Baucom Stan Freberg Verna Felton Alan Reed George Givot Dallas McKennon Lee Millar The Mellomen |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution |
| Release date(s) | June 22, 1955 |
| Running time | 75 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4,000,000 |
| Followed by | Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure (2001) |
| IMDb profile | |
Lady and the Tramp is a 1955 animated feature film produced by Walt Disney, and originally released to theaters on June 22, 1955 by Buena Vista Distribution. The fifteenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, it was the first animated feature filmed in the Cinemascope widescreen film process. The story pairs a female Cocker Spaniel named Lady who lives with a rich family and a male mutt stray named Tramp.
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[edit] Plot Synopsis
Lady is a Christmas gift from "Jim Dear" to his wife, "Darling" (as Lady hears them call each other) and soon quickly becomes the center of their attention. When Lady is six months old, she is given a collar and a license and is able to leave the house. She has friends named Jock, a black Scottish Terrier and Trusty, a brown Bloodhound who both live in the same street.
A little later, she befriends another dog – a stray called "Tramp". When Lady becomes concerned that Darling is pregnant, the streetwise Tramp describes it as an omen for things to come, claiming that "when the baby moves in, the dog moves out".
Lady feels that Jim Dear and Darling are not giving her as much attention as before, but she adores him. Soon after the baby is born, Jim Dear and Darling go away for a few days and Jim Dear's elderly Aunt Sarah comes look after the baby. Aunt Sarah has two Siamese cats, Si and Am, who explore, causing mischief. During the memorable musical number "We Are Siamese (If You Please)," Lady manages to keep the goldfish and canary safe from harm, but she barks when the Siamese go see the baby and steal its milk. Aunt Sarah then takes Lady to a pet shop to have her fitted with a muzzle, but Lady escapes.
Tramp rescues Lady from a pack of bad dogs. Tramp takes Lady to the zoo and they meet a beaver who can remove Lady's muzzle. Tramp walks Lady around town, telling her about his life as a free dog and all the different families he visits for food. He then takes Lady to Tony's Italian Restaurant, where Joe the cook prepares them a special spaghetti meal. The next morning, Tramp walks the homesick Lady home. On the way, he tries to show her how to chase chickens at a farm, but Lady is captured by the dog catcher and taken to the pound. The other dogs in the pound talked about the many girlfriends Tramp has and how "he'll never settle down – just keeps breakin' hearts". Lady is soon identified by her dog license and taken home, but Aunt Sarah chains her to a kennel in the garden.
Tramp pays her a call, but she is furious about his "other girlfriends" and refuses to see him. However, Tramp does return and Lady tells him that a rat has gone into the baby's room. She had tried barking to get Aunt Sarah's attention. Tramp manages to kill the rat, but in the process he tips over the baby's crib. Aunt Sarah wakes up, calls the dog pound and demands that the dog catcher come to collect Tramp; meanwhile, Lady is locked in the cellar. Just as the dog catcher is collecting Tramp, Jim Dear and Darling return and release Lady. Lady runs upstairs. Aunt Sarah, Jim Dear and Darling all follow her, see the dead rat and realize that Tramp meant to protect the baby and kill the rat.
Jock and Trusty chase the dog catcher's wagon on foot (or rather paw) while Jim Dear and Darling and Lady race in their car to intercept it. The dogs confront the horses which are pulling the wagon, which topples over into a tree. A taxi pulls up and Jim Dear and Lady get out. Tramp is released from the wagon, but Trusty is trapped under the wheel. Jock is convinced Trusty is killed and he begins to howl in anguish.
By Christmas, Tramp had long been adopted by Jim Dear and Darling. Lady gives birth to her and Tramp's four puppies, and they are all photographed together with the baby. Just then, Jock and Trusty arrive; it turns out Trusty had actually survived the accident and had left with only an injured leg.
[edit] Characters
- Lady: A cute, pampered, but very loving female Cocker Spaniel
- Tramp: A mutt (modeled after a schnauzer) with a knack for dodging dog-catchers and ability to pick locks. He calls Lady "Pidge", short for Pigeon.
- Jock: A Scottish Terrier with the accent to prove it, Jock is a show dog with numerous trophies.
- Trusty: A bloodhound who used to track criminals with his Grandpappy, Old Reliable, until he lost his sense of smell.
- Si and Am: Twin Siamese cats with a knack for mischief and never-ending trouble, owned by Aunt Sarah. Their names are a play on Siam and the idea of "Siamese twins", the terminology of the time for conjoined twins.
- Peg: A sassy, stray female Lhasa Apso, whom Lady meets, (along with the other dog inmates she was put in a cage with), when she is caught by the dog pound. It is implied that she had a relationship with Tramp in the past, through the lyrics of the song she sings, (He's A Tramp). She was formerly from the Dog and Pony Follies (dog and pony show), either the shows ended or she was left behind. Created for singer Peggy Lee and with her blonde bangs look, to be a part of the movie.[1]
- Toughy: A stray male mongrel from the dog pound.
- Boris: A stray male Borzoi; from the dog pound. He talks with a Russian accent.
- Pedro: A stray male Chihuahua from the dog pound. He talks with a Mexican accent.
- Bull: A stray male bulldog; from the dog pound. He talks with a slight Cockney-Australian accent.
- Dachsie: A stray male dachshund at the dog pound. He talks with a German accent.
- Jim Dear: name as known by Lady, the fatherly human figure. Darling's husband.
- Darling: name as known by Lady, wife of Jim Dear and motherly human figure.
- Aunt Sarah: She comes to take care of the baby when Jim Dear and Darling leave for a few days. Aunt Sarah is strict, she does not understand dogs, and thinks they're trouble. Aunt Sarah can be outsmarted by Lady, but she keeps coming back for her.
- Tony: Owner and chef of Tony's Italian restaurant.
- Joe: Tony's assistant chef.
- Rat: A mischievous rat which skulks around the neighborhood, and goes after the baby.
[edit] History
[edit] Production
The film was based on a short story written by Ward Greene, called Happy Dan, The Cynical Dog, published in the mid-1940s in Cosmopolitan (a literary magazine at that time), about a mutt from the wrong side of the tracks; and a story line worked on for several years by Disney story man Joe Grant and others at the Disney studio, about a Cocker Spaniel named Lady, based on Grant's own pet, a Springer Spaniel named Lady (his dog was brown and white while Lady was honey-colored all over). Greene later wrote a novelization of the film that was released two years before the film itself, at Walt Disney's insistence, so that audiences would be familiar with the story.[2]
Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.55:1 it is, to date, the widest film that Disney has ever produced.
The finished film is slightly different from what was originally planned. In early script versions, Tramp was first called Homer, then Rags and Bozo. Although both the original script and the final product both shared most of the same elements, it would still be revised and revamped. Originally, Lady was to have only one next door neighbor, a Ralph Bellamy-type canine named Hubert. Hubert was later replaced by Jock and Trusty. There were numerous scenes thought up but then deleted, as well. One scene created but then deleted was one in which, while Lady fears of the arrival of the baby, she has a "Parade of the Shoes" nightmare (similar to Dumbo's "Pink Elephants on Parade" nightmare) where a baby bootie splits in two, then four, and continues to multiply. The dream shoes then fade into real shoes, their wearer exclaiming that the baby has been born. Another cut scene was one in song, while Lady and Tramp are at the park, they engage in a bizarre Dog's World fantasy in which the roles of both dogs and humans are switched; the dogs are the masters and vice-versa.
Jock's real name, as is revealed during the movie, is "Heather Lad o' Glencairn." Jock was not the only character who was the subject of a name-game either. In fact, Lady was just about the only character who did not at one point or another have a different suggested name. For instance, prior to being "Tramp," Tramp went through a number of suggested names including Homer, Rags and Bozo. It was thought in the 1950s that the name "Tramp" would not be acceptable, but since Walt Disney approved of the choice, it was considered safe under his acceptance. On early story boards shown on the Backstage Disney DVD had listed description "a tramp dog" with "Homer" or one of the mentioned prior names.[3] Clearly, the movie's title was influenced by the pop standard "(That's Why)The Lady is a Tramp".
- Tramp
Tramp himself never refers to himself by that name, although most of the movie's canine cast refer to him by that name. It isn't until the second film in which any human calls him Tramp and it is never explained why they "name" him with the very name he was known by on the streets.
Tramp had other names in the movie, and when asked by Lady about having a family, Tramp states, "I have a different family for every day of the week, point is none of them have me." Each family mentioned had a different name, nationality, and meal. Since he doesn't belong to a single family, Tramp implies it is easier than the baby problems Lady is going through. "When you're footloose and collar free, you have no worries."[4]
Even though Trusty survives in the film, death is still shown in the dog pound. A dog known as "Nutsy" is put down. He is taken away and the lights sort of blink, and Lady asks, "You mean he's..." and the reply was yes. In the case of Lady and the Tramp it was to show what Tramp's fate would be with the dog catcher. This is done in future Disney animation, as in The Fox and the Hound. Tod's mother is shot at the beginning of the film and we see the skins of animals including foxes later in the film. This is unlike Bambi, where audiences were familiar with Bambi's mother, or also the same in the case of The Lion King, where everybody was familiar with Mufasa.
- Aunt Sarah
The character that eventually became Aunt Sarah was softened for the movie, in comparison with earlier treatments, where she was a very stereotyped battleaxe of a mother-in-law. In the film, she is a well-meaning busybody of a maiden aunt (revealed to be the sister of Darling's mother in the Greene novelization) who adores her cats, but does not believe that dogs should be around babies. She was more sympathetic in the Ward Greene novelization, where she actually rides to The Tramp's rescue in her electric car, after the dead rat is found. Likewise, the two cats (Si and Am) are more mischievous than evil in the film. However, earlier versions of the storyline, drafted in 1943, during the War, show them as a sinister pair suggesting the yellow peril, and named Nip and Tuck. In Ward Greene's novelization, they tearfully express remorse over causing Tramp's impending execution by hiding the rat's body as a joke, and then try to make amends – in the film, they simply don't figure in the climax at all, and the body of the rat isn't seen until Lady brings it to the attention of the humans. The rat, a somewhat comical character in some early versions, became a great deal more frightening, due to the need to ratchet up dramatic tension--though he was a decidedly malevolent bloodthirsty figure in Greene's 1953 book, so this conception must have been jettisoned very early on. The finished film doesn't really have much to say about Aunt Sarah or the cats, after they serve their purpose in the narrative (to get Lady out on the streets, and Tramp sent off to the pound). Si and Am are not seen after their memorable song sequence, and Aunt Sarah is only briefly mentioned at the end of the film, when it is mentioned that she has sent some dog biscuits for Christmas, presumably as an apology for having so badly misunderstood Lady and Tramp.
- Jim Dear and Darling
In pre-production, Jim Dear was known as Jim Brown, and Darling was named Elizabeth. These were dropped, presumably because the humans in Lady's life were meant to be known by the names Lady always heard them call each other. In a very early version, published as a short story in a 1944 Disney children's anthology, Lady refers to them as "Mister'"and "Missis".
According to legend, the film's opening sequence, in which Darling unwraps a hat box on Christmas morning and finds Lady inside, is based upon an actual incident in Walt Disney's life. After he'd forgotten a dinner date with his wife, he made it up to her by offering her the puppy-in-the-hat-box surprise and was immediately forgiven.
Due to the fact that the story is told from a dog's perspective, Darling and Jim's faces were rarely shown. Models of the rooms of the house were used to aid in production of the film.[5]
The Beaver in this film seemed to be the inspiration for Gopher in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), down to the speech pattern (a whistling sound when he makes the "S" sound). This voice was created by Stan Freberg, who has an extensive background in commercial and comedy recording voice overs and soundtracks. On the DVD he demonstrates how it was done and that a whistle was eventually used because it was hard to continue repeating the effect.[6]
Before animating the fight between Tramp and the rat, animator Wolfgang Reitherman kept rats in a cage next to his desk to study their actions.
The plot originally intended to have Trusty die at the end of the film while saving Tramp from the dogcatcher, which is why Jock howls at his accident. Walt Disney, however, did not want a repeat of the controversy concerning the death of the mother in Bambi, and therefore Trusty was written into the epilogue sequence to say that he was merely injured. Since he had clearly not been around for several months, one must assume he had to have extensive surgery, and when he appears again he only has a bandaged leg. This is probably the only Disney film where the heroes of the film's climax, Jock and Trusty, are not the main protagonists.
The famous spaghetti scene and the following night in the park is one of the most romantic moments in all of Disney animation. Like the sequence with Lady at the pound, it does not appear at all in Ward Greene's novelization, or any other earlier version of the story. It has been parodied on many occasions, including in the film's own sequel, Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure.
The Simpsons has parodied the film twice, particularly the famous spaghetti scene.
[edit] Naturalism
The movie is cited by many legendary Disney animators, including Walt Disney himself, to be the first Disney movie (and so far only) to have a suggested "sex scene." This is when the title characters wake up in the morning, cuddled together in the park, and leaving a knowledgable viewer fully aware of what they were doing the previous night. Furthermore, since they were not "married," this means the film managed to show sex out of marriage positively (albeit with consequences) which was prohibited in the Hollywood production code. This is further complicated by the fact that Lady apparently comes home pregnant, and the dogs next door are aware of it as well, whispering about the courtesy of proposing marriage to her. This gives further meaning to the junkyard dogs who chase Lady through the alley as well, which suggests she is in heat. These gentle suggestions were possible in the 1950's only because the characters in question are dogs. The next scene has Jock and Trusty proposing marriage to Lady to explain the scene to children. [7]
[edit] Re-release schedule and home video
The film was reissued to theaters in 1962, 1971, 1980, and 1986, and on VHS and Laserdisc in 1987 (this was in Disney's The Classics video series) and 1998 (this was in the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection video series). A Disney Limited Issue series DVD was released on November 23, 1999. It was remastered and restored for DVD on February 28, 2006, as the seventh installment of Platinum Edition series. [8] One million copies of the Platinum Edition were sold on February 28, 2006 [9] The Platinum Edition DVD went on moratorium on January 31, 2007, along with the 2006 DVD reissue of Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure [10]
Peggy Lee, who, along with Sonny Burke, created the songs for the film, later sued the Walt Disney Company for breach of contract claiming that she still retained rights to the transcripts, including those to videotape[11]. She was awarded $2.3m, but not without a lengthy legal battle with the studio which was finally settled in 1991. [12]
This film began a spinoff comic titled Scamp, named after one of Lady and Tramp's puppies. It was first written by Ward Greene and was published from October 31, 1955 until 1988.[13] [14] Scamp also stars in a direct-to-video sequel in 2001 titled Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure. Walt Disney's Comic Digest - issue #54 has A New Adventure of Lady and the Tramp dated copyright 1955.[15]
[edit] Lady and the Tramp theatrical release history
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[edit] Worldwide release dates
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[edit] Critical reception
Despite being an enormous success at the box office, the film was initially panned by many critics[16]. However the film has since come to be regarded as a classic. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a rating of 91%, though only 23 reviews are counted.
[edit] Soundtrack Listing
- Main Title (Bella Notte) /The Wag of a Dog's Tail
- Peace on Earth (Silent Night)
- It Has a Ribbon/Lady to Bed/A Few Mornings Later
- Sunday/The Rat/Morning Paper
- A New Collar/Jock & Trusty/It's Jim Dear
- What a Day!/Breakfast at Tony's
- Warning/Breakout/Snob Hill/A Wee Bairn
- Countdown to B-Day
- Baby's First Morning/What Is a Baby/La La Lu
- Going Away/Aunt Sarah
- The Siamese Cat Song/What's Going on Down There
- The Muzzle/Wrong Side of the Tracks
- You Poor Kid/He's Not My Dog
- Through the Zoo/A Log Puller
- Footloose and Collar-Free/Belle Notte
- It's Morning/Ever Chase Chickens/Caught
- Home Sweet Home
- The Pound
- What a Dog/He's a Tramp
- In the Doghouse/The Rat Returns/Falsely Accused/We've Got to Stop That Wagon/Trusty's Sacrifice
- Watch the Birdie/Visitors
- Finale (Peace on Earth)
On Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic, this includes Bella Notte on the green disc, The Siamese Cat Song on the purple disc, and He's a Tramp on the orange disc. And on Disney's Greatest Hits, this also includes Bella Notte on the blue disc, He's a Tramp on the green disc, and The Siamese Cat Song on the red disc.
[edit] Voice cast
- Peggy Lee - Darling, Si, Am,Peg
- Barbara Luddy - Lady
- Larry Roberts - Tramp
- Bill Thompson - Jock, Joe, Bulldog, Dachsie, Policeman
- Bill Baucom - Trusty
- Stan Freberg - Mr. Busy the beaver
- Verna Felton - Aunt Sarah
- Alan Reed - Boris
- Thurl Ravenscroft - Al the alligator
- George Givot - Tony
- Dallas McKennon - Toughy, Pedro, Professor
- Lee Millar - Jim Dear; Dogcatcher
- The Mellomen - Dog Chorus
[edit] Directing Animators
- Milt Kahl (Tramp)
- Frank Thomas (animator)(Eating Spaghetti)
- Ollie Johnston (Lady, Jock, Trusty)
- John Lounsbery (Tony, Joe, various dogs)
- Wolfgang Reitherman (Fight scene)
- Eric Larson (Peg)
- Les Clark (Lady as puppy)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Lady and the Tramp Platinum Edition DVD disc 1 'Closed caption track, states the term dog and pony follies - 'which best links to subject dog and pony show'
- ^ Lady and the Tramp Platinum Edition DVD disc 2 'Disney backstage, Ward Greene involvement with the creation of the story'
- ^ Lady and the Tramp Platinum Edition DVD disc 2 'Disney backstage, story boards shown from the making of the movie show the name a tramp dog'
- ^ Lady and the Tramp Platinum Edition DVD disc 1 'text of the movie Tramp explaining his life'
- ^ Lady and the Tramp Platinum Edition DVD disc 2 "Disney backstage, models of rooms of the house used for the animators to view the dog perspective"
- ^ Lady and the Tramp Platinum Edition DVD disc 2 "Disney backstage, Stan Freberg demonstration of beaver voice and use of a whistle"
- ^ Lady and the Tramp Platinum Edition DVD disc 2 "Disney backstage, detail of how the romantic scene was handled for this movie for children"
- ^ [1]' Platinum Edition'
- ^ [2]'sales info of the DVD'
- ^ [3]'Lady and the Tramp II information'
- ^ Peggy Lee article
- ^ [4] 'BBC News June 26, 2002'
- ^ Western Publishing Company-Whitman copyright dates 1959, 1958, 1957 in that order, Only initials WR-W.D.C. ??-Walt Disney Company
- ^ Scamp #25 Gold Key comics Western Publishing is more recent, date September 1975
- ^ Walt Disney Comics Digest #54 - Labeled IVR D.D.B.P #2 (Donald Duck's Beach Party #2)
- ^ Walt and Education: Part I
[edit] External links
- Lady and the Tramp at the Internet Movie Database
- The Big Cartoon DataBase entry for Lady and the Tramp
