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Audio Format: Dolby Digital Stereo Video Format: Widescreen 1.85:1, Standard 1.33:1 Languages: English, Spanish Subtitles: English, French, Spanish Region Code: 1 Year Made: 1989 Running Time: 75
Eighteen Japanese animal trainers worked on The Adventures of Milo and Otis, a heavily anthropomorphized animal movie in the tradition of Disney's The Incredible Journey.
Milo is an orange kitten, Otis is his pug-nosed puppy friend, and their run-ins with crows, snakes, owls, bears, deer, raccoons and fish make up most of the story line. They eventually meet their mates, produce litters and look for food for their new families, all the while remaining pals.
Most of the suspense involves Milo's involuntary trip down a river in a wooden crate, Otis' rescue of his friend from a treacherous pit and Otis' near-death during a wintry storm. The trainers have come up with a number of delightful, candid-camera moments - a small deer curling up with Milo for a nap, an agitated crab latching onto Milo's whiskers, a long-tailed fox frolicking with Otis in a meadow - while scrupulously avoiding such nitty-gritty touches as Milo stalking or chewing mice.
The Adventures of Milo and Otis does not include a single human character on-screen. It's the work of a Japanese author and filmmaker, Masanori Hata, who shot it over a period of several years as "Koneko Monogatari," using 400,000 feet of film and about 30 cats to play Milo. The associate director, Kon Ichikawa, is the renowned creator of such Japanese classics as Tokyo Olympiad and The Burmese Harp.
The English-language version, which was created by Columbia Pictures, drops 14 of the original's 90 minutes and adds cloying narration by Dudley Moore and a doggerel theme song called "Walk Outside." The author of this forgettable ditty gets full credit; not so Aaron Copland, whose "Appalachian Spring" is used for one sequence, or Elmer Bernstein, whose music for To Kill a Mockingbird clearly inspired much of the score.
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