The deliciously evil Cruella de Vil is portrayed here in bed, her iconic two tone hair in rollers, reading the newspaper, and absolutely loving it.
The puppies have been stolen by her henchmen, the 'fur coat' plan is in motion, and here she is at timecode 30:36 lounging under the bedsheet, cigarette holder in hand, relishing the coverage of "Anita and her Bashful Beethoven" in a copy of a paper whose back page, beautifully observed by the Disney layout crew, is headlined "Never Never Christmas", a knowing dig at the instalment-credit culture of the era, the never-never, where people borrowed and never quite paid back.
Even at rest, even in rollers, Cruella's nastiness is shining through every line of her. This scene is nothing short of quietly marvellous.
This is a strikingly rare image. Practically every piece of Cruella art that surfaces shows her in full operatic flight: the fur coat, the cigarette holder, the car, the screaming at Jasper and Horace. This cel catches her in an unguarded domestic moment, which makes it, paradoxically, more revealing of who she is.
Cruella de Vil was the creation of Marc Davis, one of Disney's legendary Nine Old Men, and she stands as one of the crowning achievements of his extraordinary career. Davis had an unrivalled gift for animating female characters with wit, elegance and psychological depth, having previously brought life to Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora and Tinker Bell, but in Cruella he found a subject that allowed him to push in an entirely different direction. Where those earlier characters demanded grace and sympathy, Cruella demanded venom, theatricality and a kind of gloriously unhinged vanity, and Davis delivered all of it with total conviction. He constructed her movement around sharp, angular lines and sudden, whip-like gestures, giving her a physicality that felt genuinely dangerous even when she was doing nothing more than reading a newspaper in bed. Davis understood that a great villain must be internally consistent, that every pose and expression must feel like a natural extension of the same essential character, and this cel is a perfect demonstration of that principle at work.
The expression Cruella wears as she absorbs the morning's coverage, caught somewhere between amusement and that reflexive cruelty that runs through every incarnation of the character back to Dodie Smith's 1956 novel, is precisely the kind of small, specific, telling pose that tests a great animator's draftsmanship to its fullest. It is far easier to animate a character screaming or raging than to animate them quietly enjoying themselves in a way that still communicates everything corrupt and self-satisfied about who they are. Davis managed it completely. Cruella de Vil, ranked 39th on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains list, was Betty Lou Gerson's finest vocal hour, but it was Davis who gave her a body, a silhouette and a soul, however black, and even here in repose that authorship is unmistakable in every line.
This is a wonderful 12-field production cel setup complete with bottom peg holes, retaining the cel overlay for the bed sheet, which gives the composition its full depth and is precisely as it appears on screen. Condition is excellent throughout.
Estimate: £2,000 - £4,000 Ω
See Online Here: 146. Cruella de Vil in Bed Original Production Cel Framed ### 101 DALMATIANS (1961)
