Given as a Christmas gift from a husband to his wife, Lady (Barbara Luddy) takes to her new human owners, whom she knows only as Jim Dear (Lee Millar) and Darling (Peggy Lee), as that is what they call each other.
Making friends with other neighbourhood dogs, Scottish terrier Jock (Bill Thompson) and forgetful bloodhound Trusty (Bill Baucom), Lady settles in to her new life very quickly.
All seems to be going well, and Lady gets all the attention she could want from Jim Dear and Darling, until she learns that they are expecting a baby. All of a sudden, Lady is no longer the centre of attention, and life as she knows it is all about to change.
One day, she meets a stray mutt who goes by several different names, but whom she comes to know as Tramp. The two become fast friends, and indeed, it seems there may be something more growing between them at times.
I’ll leave the plot there, and let you find it out for yourself. The film is only short (72 minutes), and I dare say, you’ve possibly seen it before anyway at some point; it has been available for quite some time.
While watching this again for the purposes of writing this review, it struck me that this film was made long before the days of computer animation that audiences take so much for granted in this day and age. That’s right: every single frame of this film was drawn entirely by hand by a relatively small group of animators (if the credits are to be believed; perhaps there were several animators who didn’t get their names included for whatever reason). And that makes the film even more special, in my view.
As with a large number of animated films, particularly from this era, the film is underscored pretty much from beginning to end. And the score – by Oliver Wallace – is absolutely incredible. The more I learn about the process of composing and scoring for film, the more I learn to appreciate some of the fantastic scores that have been created in the past. And this is certainly one of those fantastic scores.
Having said that, I didn’t really care for the few songs in the film. By the time the film was over, I was so sick of the song ‘Bella Notte’, which I think I had heard four times in full. And the song that the two Siamese cats sing by way of introducing themselves to Lady is very grating on the ears. I’m not trying to be overly critical, but I feel the film could have been just as enjoyable – and indeed even more so – without either of these songs to drag it down.
The story is well told throughout, and the premise of experiencing the world through Lady’s eyes also works well, and is used on more than a few occasions for comedic purposes.
Overall, this is a sweet tale that will no doubt delight young audiences with less critical tastes than my own.
5 out of 10.
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