This was the last Disney animated feature (1961) that Uncle Walt lived to see through personally; it can’t be a coincidence that it’s also the last Disney animated feature of real depth and emotional authenticity. Cruella De Vil, kidnapping the stray puppies of London to feed her fur-coat factory, has a bristling, flamboyant meanness that makes her one of the most memorable of Disney’s sinister parent figures, and the cleanly stylized animation represents a realistic response to the economic constraints the Disney studio was beginning to feel at the time without a sacrifice of Disney quality. The line directors were Wolfgang Reitherman, Hamilton S. Luske, and Clyde Geronimi.
