Dir. Clyde Geronimi + Wilfred Jackson + Hamilton Luske
"Oh this is the night
It's a beautiful night
and we call it bella notte"
Is there a more famous dish in cinema? The spaghetti and meatballs served for Lady (Barbara Luddy) and Tramp (Larry Roberts), combined with the beautiful song 'Bella Notte', is an enduring image of romance years after the release of the film. You only have to hear "This is the night" to be whisked away in your mind to the atmosphere of the romantic back alley.
Honestly this scene is so perfect that I feel writing about it in depth is just clunky and takes away from the beauty of it. But I'm going to anyway because it deserves it; I'll be as brief as possible.
In this one dish, the class barriers are not broken down, they are unified. The scene takes place in the back alley of an average Italian restaurant, run by the boisterous Tony (George Givot), who welcomes Tramp, an enjoyable visit from a stray dog to perk up his night. Tony and his chef Joe (Bill Thompson) prepare a meal of spaghetti and meatballs, not bones as Joe first tires and is scolded for, as this is a romantic date between Lady and Tramp. By having humans buy into this idea is wonderful, as it's incredibly un-cynical and enjoyable, as is Tony's character in general, and the double-act aspect of him and Joe. The candlelit dinner is something that Lady, reflecting her upper class owners, would be expected to take part in on a date. It's classically romantic (honestly, these days, probably due to the influence of this scene which we all view as kids). Having it in a back alley bridges the gap with the lower class, and the restaurant itself is fairly low-rent.
How the spaghetti and meatballs are used is genius. The accidental kiss that occurs due to both dogs slurping the same piece of spaghetti and meeting lips, is innocent, accidental, and brings the two to their natural end-point. As Lady bashfully turns her head away in embarrassment, Tramp, in a fantastically romantic move, rolls the last meatball with his nose to her side of the plate, a sign that the kiss was exactly what he wanted, and that he feels affection for her. It also does something beyond human, as nose rolling is something dogs do naturally, and so it combines the anthropomorphic human elements of the scene: the table, the candle, so on, with the true animal nature of the pair, which to us humans, is doubly cute, and makes the moment that much better.
Eating spaghetti is also a naturally messy process. We see Lady slurp the string in surprise, breaking down her class, her 'superiority' for this meal, ergo her 'superiority' for a dog of Tramp's class. It informs the two of them that Lady is stepping down, and Tramp's staging of the meal is his way of stepping up. The two classes, unified in love.
The music is the glue. It's an unabashed love song about savouring the beautiful night, not alone, but with a loved one. "The stars' in their eyes" is a fantastically simple lyric - the 'beautiful' night is brought right down the eyes of the one you love. "The night will weave its magic spell" is right, and it's done here by the magic of animation, humanity and animal-ity (you get my meaning) combined, and of course, music. It taps into every nervous first date we've had, will have, or have yet to have; our love of animals, particularly dogs, as a species; and our deep-down love for an unabashed love song.
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