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Cruella de Vil (voiced by the late Betty Lou Gerson) is the evil villainess of the 1961 animated movie One Hundred and One Dalmatians. The character later appeared in a 1996 live action film .

Personality[]

Cruella is one of the most iconic and well-known Disney Villains and is a primary member of the franchise, she is remembered for her unique name, extravagance, and obsession - practically a worship - of fur. As mentioned earlier Cruella is very fashionable and chic, she dresses only in fur which she apparently lives for. However, as her name might suggest, she is also extremely cruel, ruthless, manipulative, conniving and vile. Behind her glamour is an extremely murderous and vituperative psychopath who is willing to kill and skin 99 puppies just to create her own spotted fur coat and when the Radcliffes would not sell she resorted to stealing them.

However, unlike other villains such as Scar, Hades or Judge Claude Frollo, Cruella is not much of a schemer who carefully plans out, she has shown to be quite reckless and temerarious, so she appears to act on impulse. Cruella shows a complete lack of manners, being rude and possibly even arrogant and according to Anita this trait was passed on when she was young at school, Cruella is shown to be extremely obnoxious, detestable and prejudicial, so she demands her 99 puppy dalmatians without saying "please". Cruella could be considered a narcissist.

Cruella's appearance resembled that of a demon, she is described as a "devil woman" by the Dalmatians and is physically frightening which was shown by the lyrics of "Cruella De Vil", "Cruella De Vil, Cruella De Vil if she doesn't scare you no evil thing will!" Cruella is short-tempered, cantankerous and quarrelsome. She has shown to be easily enraged and infuriated, an example of this would when the Radcliffes denied her the dalmatians and she left in a fit of rage. Her henchman, Jasper and Horace, appear to be the cause of most of her frustration. At the end of the film is when Cruella has a complete and murderous breakdown.

She appears to be abusive, defamatory and argumentative towards her minions, Jasper and Horace, an example of this would be when she acquired the two of them the task of dognapping the dalmatians while they were watching the TV show "What's My Crime" and then asked if they can watch it to the end she slaps them in exasperation of their bumbling stupidity. Cruella is cold-hearted and unsympathetic, so she despises dogs, describing them as beasts and shows very little concern of their lives.

She also appears to be an unpleasant and treacherous sadist, taking great delight in the thought of killing the puppies in the most brutal ways. It is not until the end Cruella reveals her true personality, a violent, careless, murderous, destructive and downright evil psychopath after the dalmatians escape, she becomes nearly insane and preposterous, so she goes on a rampage trying to retrieve the dogs but accidentally crashes the car she was driving.

Original film[]

In her debut, Cruella was mentioned by Roger to be Anita's old schoolmate. He began to sing his own version of her called "Cruella De Vil". Cruella storms in and asks if the puppies came believing they are the key to make a spotted fur coat. Anita says in three weeks they will. Cruella leaves without even joining Anita for tea. She then comes back in three weeks. Anita and Roger say "no" when she asks them to sell the puppies. Roger even told Cruella off. Furiously, Cruella storms out, warning them that she would get even and they would be sorry. She asks Horace and Jasper on the phone for help in stealing the puppies.

Then she next appears in the film when she angrily watches her henchmen watching "What's My Crime". She demands them to start skinning the puppies for a fur coat. She slaps Horace and Jasper when they ask if they can finish the show first, and leaves them in her house to skin the puppies, threatening to call the police if they aren't done by morning. She finds Horace and Jasper looking for the puppies who escaped the house and they discover their footprints in the snow. She then vowed to find the dogs "even if it takes until next Christmas."

They follow them to Dinsford and Cruella sees black puppies and soon she realizes that they are the puppies in soot when snow falls on them and uncovers their disguises. She calls her henchmen to catch them, but they are attacked by a black Labrador and fall down on the road. Cruella follows the van the puppies ride in, but damages her car in a tree and is trapped in the snow, but quickly escapes the trap and crashes into a tree, knocking off her car parts. Enraged, she goes insane with a wild look in her face in her attempts to catch the puppies and rams the truck that they are in to try and knock it off the road, but Horace and Jasper try to do the same thing, but Horace pulls out the wheel and they crash into Cruella's car. Both cars crash down a hill but Cruella and her henchmen are unharmed, but the puppies escape. Cruella cries and yells at Horace and Jasper, who finally get fed up with her insults, and tell her to shut up, and they are later arrested off-screen.

Sequel film[]

Cruella had been released from jail, but has a restraining order and is on probation. Her life in ruins, she tries to calm herself down working with Lars, a German artist. Try as he might, however, he cannot please Cruella with his designs, so she decides to help by looking for the Dalmatian puppies again and find out their address by seeing Patch on the newspaper. She bails Horace and Jasper out of jail to find the puppies, and she hides them in a stolen truck to get to the puppies. The Baduns are able to subdue the Nanny and steal the puppies for Cruella, who aspires to use their fur for a coat. When Lars disagrees, Cruella ties him up and gags him, and turns to her original plan of turning the puppies into a fur coat.

Patch's hero, Thunderbolt, tries to rescue the puppies, but Lil' Lightning tricks him into openly attacking Cruella and the Baduns. Cruella captures him and Patch. Lightning reveals Thunderbolt as a fraud, crushing Patch's spirit. The puppies escape but Thunderbolt is too ashamed to follow. The Baduns inform Cruella that the puppies escaped, but Patch tricks them while Thunderbolt frees Lars. The dalmatian puppies escape in a double-decker bus and Cruella chases after them with her henchmen, but Cruella is distracted by Thunderbolt faking a heart attack. Cruella decides to put him out of his misery by killing him, but she accidentally knocks the Baduns unconscious. Patch puts the bus in reverse and Cruella, Lil' Lightning, and the Baduns are almost run over and fall into a river. Lil' Lightning and the Baduns are imprisoned while an insane Cruella is dragged into a mental institute, never to be seen again.

Wikipedia entry

Gallery[]

Cruella VotD

Cruella De Vil- Villainess of January 25th

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