Movies - The Aristocats

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	Movies - The Aristocats

The Aristocats is the twentieth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, released in 1970 from the Walt Disney studio. The story revolves around a family of aristocratic cats, and how an alley cat acquaintance helps prevent a greedy butler from murdering them. This film is noted for being the last film to be approved by Walt Disney himself; he died in 1966, while the film was still in early production. It was originally released to theaters by Buena Vista Distribution on December 11, 1970.

The film's basic idea - an animated romantic musical comedy about talking cats in France - had previously been used in the UPA animated feature Gay Purr-ee
.

There will be a sequel, The Aristocats II
, in 2007.

Plot

Set in Paris in the year 1910, this is the story about a mother cat named Duchess and her three kittens: her biological daughter Marie, and her two adopted sons Berlioz and Toulouse. They live in the Mansion of retired opera singer Adelaide Bonfamille, along with Edgar the Butler, Frou Frou the horse, and Roquefort the mouse, who is a good friend of the cats.

Adelaide, who will be passing away soon, wants to settle her will with her lawyer Georges (a senile old man who denies his old age and refuses to accept Edgar's offer to use the lift instead of the long staircase). Adelaide tells Georges that she wishes to leave her entire fortune to her cats, something that Edgar overhears (through a secret soundpipe) and disagrees with, as the greedy butler wants the fortune for himself.

That evening, Edgar drops some sleeping pills in the cats' milk, putting them to sleep. Then, after night falls, Edgar takes the sleeping cats in their basket far away from home, hoping to drop the into a river near a farm. However, two farm dogs, Napoleon and Lafayette, hear Edgar approach the farm and attack him, believing him to be an intruder who plans to rob the farm, forcing him to drop the basket on the bank. Edgar manages to escape from the farm, but is forced to leave his motorbike's passenger seat, hat and umbrella.

Back at the mansion, Roquefort learns that the cats are missing, and goes out to look for them.

Meanwhile, Duchess and the kittens awake to find themselves in the middle of nowhere. Worried, they decide to sleep in their basket and wait for the morning. When the sun rises, Duchess meets a nearby friendly stray cat named Thomas O'Malley, who befriends the cats and helps them get home.

Roquefort returns to the mansion, and miserably tells the downhearted Frou Frou that he couldn't find the cats anywhere. Edgar, the only happy person in the mansion, dances into the stable, and tells Frou Frou (believing that she can't understand him) that it was he who kidnapped the cats. It is then that Edgar remembers that the only evidence left to convict him is the stuff he left at the farm the previous night, and that he must get them back quickly.

Thomas, Duchess and the kittens continue the journey home, and befriend three geese named Abigail, Amelia and Waldo on the way. Later on, they find an old house to stay at with Thomas' alley cat friends led by Scat Cat.

Meanwhile, Edgar sets off to the farm to find his stuff, and sees that Napoleon and Lafayette have made beds out of them. Edgar lures the two dogs away from the stuff, and, after another fight, manages to escape again, but this time, with everything. Napoleon and Lafayette stare at the triumphant butler in horror, and Napoleon scolds Lafayette by bashing him on the head.

The next morning, the cats make it back home, and Duchess says goodbye to Thomas. Edgar opens the door for them, letting them in. But before Roquefort can warn the, Edgar slams a sack over them, tying them up and hiding them in the oven. Horrified, Roquefort runs to get Thomas, who tells Roquefort to call his alley cat friends while he holds Edgar off.

Thomas sneaks into the barn, where he sees Edgar lock the cats in a trunk, hoping to send them to Timbuktu. (Since this, Timbuktu has become a slang term for charitable organizations that take people's used items for the poor.) Thomas stops Edgar and closes the barn door. Edgar and Thomas fight over the trunk, but Edgar, being human, overpowers the stray cat and pins him to a wall with a pitchfork (but not stabbing him). At that moment, Roquefort and the alley cats arrive and stall Edgar while Roquefort unlocks the padlock on the trunk.

After a fierce battle, Frou Frou kicks Edgar into the trunk and the cats lock it, just as the delivery men arrive and ship Edgar to Timbuktu.

That night, Adelaide accepts Thomas into the family, and erases Edgar from her will (Edgar was to receive the fortune after the cats died). She also gives the cats a surprise: her new cat foundation, which makes a home for all the alley cats of Paris.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Aristocats ]

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