Lady and the Tramp

In 1937, Walt Disney Productions story artist Joe Grant came up with an idea inspired by the antics of his English Springer Spaniel Lady, and how she got "shoved aside" by Joe's new baby. He approached Walt Disney with sketches of Lady. Disney enjoyed the sketches and commissioned Grant to start story development on a new animated feature titled Lady.[4] Through the late 1930s and early 1940s, Joe Grant and other artists worked on the story, taking a variety of approaches, but Disney was not pleased with any of them, primarily because he thought Lady was too sweet, and there was not enough action.[4]

Walt Disney read the short story written by Ward Greene, titled "Happy Dan, the Cynical Dog", in the Cosmopolitan magazine, published in 1945.[5][6] He thought that Grant's story would be improved if Lady fell in love with a cynical dog character like the one in Greene's story, and bought the rights to it.[7] The cynical dog had various names during development, including Homer, Rags, and Bozo, before "Tramp" was chosen.[5]

The finished film is slightly different from what was originally planned. Lady was to have only one next-door neighbor, a Ralph Bellamy-type canine named Hubert. Hubert was later replaced with Jock and Trusty. Aunt Sarah was the traditional overbearing mother-in-law. In the final film, she is softened to a busybody who, though antagonistic towards Lady and Tramp, is well-meaning (she sends a packet of dog biscuits to the dogs at Christmas to apologize for mistreating them). Aunt Sarah's Nip and Tuck were later renamed Si and Am.[5] Originally, Lady's owners were called Jim Brown and Elizabeth. These were changed to highlight Lady's point of view. They were briefly referred to as "Mister" and "Missis" before settling on the names "Jim Dear" and "Darling". To maintain a dog's perspective, Darling and Jim's faces are rarely shown, similar to Tom's various owners in the Tom and Jerry cartoons. The rat was a somewhat comic character in early sketches, but became a great deal more frightening, due to the need to raise dramatic tension. A scene created but then deleted was one in which after Trusty says "Everybody knows, a dog's best friend is his human", Tramp describes a world in which the roles of both dogs and humans are switched; the dogs are the masters and vice versa.[4] There was a love triangle among Lady, Tramp, and a Russian wolfhound named Boris (who appears in the dog pound in the final version).[8]

The film's opening sequence, in which Darling unwraps a hat box on Christmas morning and finds Lady inside, is inspired by an incident when Walt Disney presented his wife Lily with a Chow puppy as a gift in a hat box to make up for having previously forgotten a dinner date with her.[9]

In 1949, Grant left the studio, yet Disney story men were continually pulling Grant's original drawings and story off the shelf to retool.[4] A solid story began taking shape in 1953,[7] based on Grant's storyboards and Greene's short story.[4] 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.[10] Grant did not receive film credit for his story work, an issue that animation director Eric Goldberg hoped to rectify in the Lady and the Tramp Platinum Edition's behind-the-scenes vignette that explained Grant's role.[4]

Singer Peggy Lee not only voiced four characters but co-wrote six songs for the film.[11]

As they had done with deer on Bambi, the animators studied many dogs of different breeds to capture the movement and personality of dogs. Although the spaghetti eating sequence is probably now the best-known scene from the film, Walt Disney was prepared to cut it, thinking that it would not be romantic and that dogs eating spaghetti would look silly. Animator Frank Thomas was against Walt's decision and animated the entire scene himself without any lay-outs. Walt was impressed by Thomas's work and how he romanticized the scene and kept it in.[4] On viewing the first take of the scene, the animators felt that the action should be slowed down, so an apprentice trainee was assigned to create "half numbers" in between many of the original frames.[12]

Originally, the background artist was supposed to be Mary Blair and she did some inspirational sketches for the film. However, she left the studio to become a children's book illustrator in 1953. Claude Coats was then appointed as the key background artist. Coats made models of the interiors of Jim Dear and Darling's house, and shot photos and film at a low perspective as reference to maintain a dog's view.[10] Eyvind Earle (who later became the art director of Disney's Sleeping Beauty) did almost 50 miniature concept sketches for the "Bella Notte" sequence and was a key contributor to the film.[10]

Originally, Lady and the Tramp was planned to be filmed in a regular full frame aspect ratio. However, due to the growing interest of widescreen film among movie-goers, Disney decided to animate the film in CinemaScope making Lady and the Tramp the first animated feature filmed in the process.[5] This new innovation presented additional problems for the animators: the expansion of space created more realism but gave fewer closeups.[7] It also made it difficult for a single character to dominate the screen so that groups had to be spread out to keep the screen from appearing sparse.[5] Longer takes become necessary since constant jump-cutting would seem too busy or annoying.[3] Layout artists essentially had to reinvent their technique. Animators had to remember that they had to move their characters across a background instead of the background passing behind them.[7] Yet the animators overcame these obstacles during the action scenes, such as Tramp killing the rat.[3]

More problems arose as the premiere date got closer since not all theaters had the capability to show CinemaScope at the time. Upon learning this, Walt issued two versions of the film: one in widescreen, and another in the Academy ratio. This involved gathering the layout artists to restructure key scenes when characters were on the edges of the screen.[13]

Lady and the Tramp was first released on North American VHS and Laserdisc in 1987 as part of the Walt Disney Classics video series and in the United Kingdom in 1990. At the end of its initial home video release, it was reported to have sold more than three million copies becoming the best-selling videocassette at the time.[17] It went into moratorium on March 31, 1988.[18] It was released on VHS in 1998 as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection video series. A Disney Limited Issue series DVD of the film was released on November 23, 1999 for a limited sixty-day time period.[19]

After the first release on videotape, Peggy Lee sought performance and song royalties on the video sales. Disney CEO Michael Eisner refused, thus she filed suit in 1988. Eventually in 1992, the California Court of Appeals order Disney to pay Lee $3.2 million in compensation or about 4% of the video sales.[11]

Lady and the Tramp was remastered and restored for DVD on February 28, 2006, as the seventh installment of Disney's Platinum Editions series.[20] On its first day, one million copies of the Platinum Edition were sold.[21] The Platinum Edition DVD went on moratorium on January 31, 2007, along with the 2006 DVD re-issue of the film's sequel Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure.[22]

Lady and the Tramp was released on Blu-ray on February 7, 2012 as a part of Disney's Diamond Editions series.[23] A standalone 1-disc DVD edition was released on March 20, 2012.[24][25]

Lady and the Tramp was re-released on Digital HD on February 20, 2018, and on Blu-ray February 27, 2018, as part of the Walt Disney Signature Collection line.[26]

During its initial release, the film was initially panned by critics.[27] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times claimed the film was "not the best [Disney] has done in this line. The sentimentality is mighty, and the CinemaScope size does not make for any less aware of the thickness of the goo. It also magnifies the animation, so that the flaws and poor foreshortening are more plain. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, the artists' work is below par in this film."[28] Time wrote "Walt Disney has for so long parlayed gooey sentiment and stark horror into profitable cartoons that most moviegoers are apt to be more surprised than disappointed to discover that the combination somehow does not work this time."[29] However, Variety deemed the film "a delight for the juveniles and a joy for adults".[30] Harrison's Reports felt the "scintillating musical score and several songs, the dialogue and the voices, the behaviors and expressions of the different characters, the mellow turn-of-the-century backgrounds, the beautiful color and sweep of the CinemaScope process — all these add up to the one of the most enjoyable cartoon features Disney has ever made."[31] Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times described the film as a "delightful, haunting, charmed fantasy that is remarkably enriched with music and, incidentally, with rare conversations among the canine characters."[32]

However, the film has since gone on to become regarded as a classic. Dave Kehr, writing for The Chicago Tribune gave the film four stars.[33] Animation historian Charles Solomon praised the film.[34] The sequence of Lady and Tramp sharing a plate of spaghetti — climaxed by an accidental kiss as they swallow opposite ends of the same strand of spaghetti — is considered an iconic scene in American film history.[35] The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received a 93% approval rating, with an average rating of 7.92/10, based on 41 reviews. The website's consensus states, "A nostalgic charmer, Lady and the Tramp's token sweetness is mighty but the songs and richly colored animation are technically superb and make for a memorable experience."[36]

Lady and the Tramp was named number 95 out of the "100 Greatest Love Stories of All Time" by the American Film Institute in their 100 Years...100 Passions special, as one of only two animated films to appear on the list, along with Disney's Beauty and the Beast which ranked 34th.[37] In 2010, Rhapsody called its accompanying soundtrack one of the all-time great Disney and Pixar soundtracks.[38] In June 2011, TIME named it one of "The 25 All-TIME Best Animated Films".[39]

In its initial release, the film took in a higher figure than any other Disney animated feature since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,[14] earning an estimated $6.5 million in distributor rentals.[40] When it was re-released in 1962, it grossed roughly between $6 million and $7 million. During its 1971 re-release, the film grossed $10 million, and when it was re-released again in 1980, it grossed $27 million.[41] During its fourth re-release in 1986, it garnered $31.1 million.[42]

Lady and the Tramp has had a domestic lifetime gross of $93.6 million,[1][43] and a lifetime international gross of $187 million.[2]

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated[47]
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – No. 95
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
  • He's a Tramp – Nominated[48]
• AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals – Nominated[49]
• AFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Animated Film[50]

All tracks are written by Sonny Burke & Peggy Lee.

On February 27, 2001, Disney Television Animation released a direct-to-video sequel to the film titled Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure. Produced 46 years after its predecessor and set two years and a few months after the events of the first film, it centers on the adventures of Lady and Tramp's only son, Scamp, who desires to be a wild dog. He runs away from his family and joins a gang of junkyard dogs to fulfill his longing for freedom and a life without rules. Reviews for the sequel were generally mixed to negative, with critics panning its plot.

Walt Disney Pictures produced a live-action remake of the film with Justin Theroux and Tessa Thompson in the voice roles of Tramp and Lady respectively.[56][57][58] The movie premiered on Disney's new streaming service, Disney+, on its US launch date of November 12, 2019.[59]