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Pongo, a handsome Dalmatian owned by Roger, an artist, introduces his master to a charming young lady called Anita, who owns an equally charming lady Dalmatian, Perdita. Roger and Anita marry, and soon Perdita and Pongo are the proud parents of fifteen Dalmatian puppies. But Anita's chic and unscrupulous friend Cruella De Vil hires Jasper and Horace, two thugs, to kidnap the puppies and hide them in a remote country house. Here she already holds eighty-four puppies captive, intending to have a coat made from their skins.

Finding their human friends baffled by the crime, Pongo and Perdita appeal to the dogs of London. Signals sent out by the "Twilight Bark" are heard in Suffolk by a shaggy retired sheepdog, the Colonel, who with the help of Sergeant Tibbs locates the puppies and guides Pongo and Perdita to the spot. Soon all 101 Dalmatians are making their way back to London, closely pursued by Cruella and her minions. The dogs, disguised as Labradors, stow away on a lorry, and finally outdistance their enemies who end up foiled and furious. Roger and Anita decide to set up a home for all the Dalmatians.

The Disney cartoon team's danger has always lain in lapses of taste, so that it is especially pleasant to find a theme of infinite sentimental possibilities treated here with so much discretion. Once the slightly awkward opening passages of canine matchmaking are out of the way, the plot takes hold and from the kidnapping onwards the tone of the film remains firm, even when frantic, and genuinely engaging. Equally improved, the backgrounds are lovingly done in soft, restrained colour which contrasts effectively with the strong and simple lines of the drawn figures. The animation of the humans is successful where they are caricatures like Cruella, but remains stiff and insipid in the case of the two young people. The dogs, however, are distinct and undeniable personalities, from the pets who resemble their owners out for a stroll to the Great Dane of Hampstead, and the tiny yapping terrier who all but falls off a stone gate-post in her excitement. Otherwise the gentle (and curiously dated) satire on British drawing-room comedy-types comes over quite well, and is greatly helped by some well-chosen voices. But it is a pity that the puppies speak with the nasal whine of transatlantic moppets, a throw-back to Disney's earlier, comic-sentimental style. Nevertheless such reservations (and perhaps there are others) are tiny things to set against the delight and the fun of the film as a whole.

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