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You know, when I was younger I liked this film a lot better than I did revisiting it after all of these years. Sure, I think it has several endearing and charming moments, but the central relationship is a little too bland for me. Lady and the Tramp really survives and endures because of its solid supporting players and handful of segments that have entered the pop culture lexicon.
There’s no real story to Lady and the Tramp, which is alternately refreshing and why is the film is ultimately unsatisfying. Yes, Lady and the Tramp fall in love, but that’s about all there is to the film. Other than that, it’s a heavily sentimental slice of Americana in which we view episodes of dog’s life throughout the year.
The romance between the two dogs feels more organic than the rushed princess fantasies, which is a good thing, but most of the memorable stuff happens outside of it. Whoever decided to bring in Peggy Lee was a genius. Her vocal delivery of pound puppy Peg is streetwise and sultry, her Darling the picture of wholesome, and her delivery on Si and Am is a questionable bit of cultural caricature. Lee’s best moment is as Peg during the musical number “He’s a Tramp.” It introduced Disney to the jazzier, more modern sensibility that would blossom in 101 Dalmatians a few years later. Another charmer is the whistling beaver in the zoo. Stan Freberg’s goofy, sweet vocal performance along with some humorous comedic bits makes for a memorable one-off character.
Although, if anything in this movie deserves infamy it is the first date between the title characters. Yes, it’s the famous scene where the dogs eat a large plate of spaghetti and accidentally kiss while being serenaded. The sweetness is overpowering, the cute is so forceful that it almost burns. It’s a quiet moment of true romantic connection between two characters.
Pity than that the overall film is somewhat unsatisfactory for some elusive reason. Could it be that the stakes are so low as to be non-existent? Or that many of the moments of dread or darkness are immediately undercut by a balmy reassurance that nothing bad has actually happened to them? It’s probably all of it. For all of the beautiful backgrounds, lovely animation, and adorable supporting players, Lady and the Tramp is just too dry for me to fully embrace any longer. For me, the best and most enduring of children’s entertainment was always the stuff that flirted with danger and didn’t always play nice. It’s a very good film that just can’t seem to shake off a sense of blandness.
