THE ARISTOCATS

The Aristocats is a 1970 animated feature produced and released by Walt Disney Productions. The twentieth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, the story revolves around a family of aristocratic cats, and how an alley cat acquaintance helps them after a butler has kidnapped them to gain his mistress' fortune which was meant to go to them. It was originally released to theaters by Buena Vista Distribution on December 11, 1970. The title is a pun on the word aristocrats.

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.

Set in Paris, France, in 1910, the story centers around a mother cat named Duchess and her three kittens: her daughter Marie, and her two sons Berlioz and Toulouse. The cats live in the mansion of retired opera singer Adelaide Bonfamille, along with her big-nosed butler Edgar. Also living on the estate are Frou-Frou (a horse) and Roquefort (a mouse who is a good friend of the cats).

Adelaide wants to settle her will with her lawyer Georges Hautecourt (a senile old man who denies his old age). Adelaide tells Georges that she wishes to leave her entire fortune to Edgar, but only after her cats reach "the end of their lifespans." Edgar overhears this plan through a speaking tube and is dismayed, as he worries that he will die before he is able to collect the inheritance (incorrectly assuming that the cats will each have nine full lifespans of twelve years, totalling 108 years). Therefore, he plots to eliminate the cats, therefore making himself the sole beneficiary.

That same evening, Edgar drops some sleeping pills in the cats' milk, putting them to sleep. After night falls, Edgar takes the sleeping cats in their travelling basket far away from home, hoping to drop them on the banks of a river near a farm. However, two farm dogs, Napoleon and Lafayette, hear Edgar approach. Believing him to be an intruder, the dogs attack him, biting him on the rear end. This causes him to drop the basket on the river bank. Edgar manages to escape, but is forced to leave his motorbike's sidecar, his prized hat, the basket, and his umbrella.


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