#25 – Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Best Character: Lady
Worst Character: Aunt Sarah
A true classic within the canon, Lady and the Tramp was dubbed as Disney’s happiest motion picture yet. There is no arguing its position as one of the most iconic Disney films if only for the famous spaghetti scene. It’s definitely one of the better love stories Disney has ever told, and Walt Disney himself didn’t even want the spaghetti scene included in the first place! One of my favorite things about this film is actually just how original it is in comparison to most of the Disney canon. Its genesis began with the antics of one of the staff members’ springer spaniel, and Walt Disney thought it could work as a film after being shown some sketches.
Lady and the Tramp has an uncanny ability to put me in a good mood. It was actually tagged as Walt Disney’s “happiest motion picture” and I certainly understand why. Perhaps it’s my love of dogs seeping in here and how Lady reminds me a lot of my old dog Kona, but this movie is wonderfully happy. That’s probably why she wins the nod for best character over Tramp, although there’s more to it than that. Lady is pampered but not snobby. She’s kind, funny, and adventurous. She’s basically what Duchess should have been if done correctly. Paired with the Tramp you have an unforgettable romance that puts its stamp on the film instantly. Although I found their romance a little weaker and shorter than I remember it being the last time I watched it, it was still believable and affectionate. I especially enjoyed how the film built up their characters before they actually met one another. They didn’t just plunge the two together in eternal bliss immediately after they met.
This film doesn’t really have a primary villain. Yes, Aunt Sarah, Si and Am, the dogcatcher and even the rat are villainous, but they’re all lacking in the traditional villain department. While I’m not quite the villain guy that vcharon is, a good villain can often make or break a Disney film for me. Aunt Sarah really isn’t a villain in the traditional sense. She’s antagonistic towards Lady, but there’s no malice there. To me she’s a lot like the ringmaster from Dumbo. They’re just doing their job and happen to mistake the animals for doing something wrong. We as the audience know the animals in question are innocent, but they don’t so they come off as evil to us. Aunt Sarah isn’t evil; she’s just an annoying busybody. She even indirectly admits her mistake and acknowledges she was wrong near the end of the film when she sends Lady some kind of gift. Whereas Aunt Sarah is awful without any evil intent, characters like Si, Am, the rat, and the dogcatcher are basically masked villains. We don’t really see into their personalities at all. They exist solely to promote evil from afar. They’re evil disembodied, and I like my evil incarnate. That said, I did enjoy just how evil Disney was able to make a rat seem. The climax at the end was very tense and well done, especially having to focus on a “character” that was never developed at all throughout the film.
This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I’m not really big on the songs here. I’ve consistently heard that Lady and the Tramp boasts one of the most underappreciated Disney soundtracks and I just didn’t see it. “Bella Notte” was my favorite song and “He’s a Tramp” was decent, but “The Siamese Cat Song” was irritating and the rest were simply forgettable.