I loved animated Disney movies as a kid. When I was in elementary school in the early ’80s, there was this period when I had not only seen many classics like Dumbo, The Jungle Book, and Pinocchio, but I also owned (very) abridged storybook versions of these movies that were accompanied by records that I’d play on my Fisher-Price turntable that I shared with my younger brother. I had seen the original The Rescuers from 1977 when it was re-released to first-run theaters in ’83, and it became an immediate favorite. I remember that it also seemed surprisingly dark, and images of the sneering, heavily and garishly made-up, middle-aged Madame Medusa haunted me for a long time afterward. I found a DVD copy from a local thrift store a few years back and picked it up immediately. Another anti-heroine who I also found both tragic and terrifying was Cruella de Vil from the 1961 animated film 101 Dalmatians.
I don’t know where to begin with Cruella de Vil, though I realize that I’m now responsible for seeing this metaphor through to completion since I’ve brought it up. I don’t think I was a hypersensitive child. I’ve been making good progress on a journey of learning to un-gaslight myself and to believe in my perceptions as having been real and valid, but believe me when I tell you that de Vil ranks slightly below Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance character from 1980’s The Shining in terms of movie villains that had shaken me to my core. There was Cruella’s over-dramatic sense of style; her exaggerated mannerisms; sharp, protruding cheekbones that looked like weapons; and perpetually arched eyebrows over eyes that seemed to convey pure evil and deceit. Never mind the selfishness with which she sought to exploit an entire family of beautiful, spotted dogs for the sake of fashion.
This was one of those book-and-record sets I had owned (or more accurately, co-owned) that had me singing her theme song around the house on repeat, probably to the chagrin of some if not all members of my family. “Cruella de Vil, Cruella de Vil, if she doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will… To see her is to take a sudden… chill! Cruella, Cruella de Vil… ♪♫” I’ve done a lot of thinking about what leads individuals to choose a dark path in life, and so I had later became curious about Cruella’s backstory.
Was her heart broken by some guy? Was she the child of parents who were narcissistic or had struggled with substance abuse? Or, was her sense of entitlement due to excessive coddling as a child? These all seemed like reasonable theories, and the young Cruella (real name “Estella”) had been an heiress. Apparently, the live-action Cruella from 2021 (which I admit I have not yet seen) does reference her childhood trauma, which doesn’t excuse anything even if it explains it.
Getting back to the adult Cruella as I had first encountered her on the big screen, I had trouble believing my later discovery that she and protagonist Anita Darling were actually the same age, having gone to school together! I’m sorry, but the animated Cruella looked decidedly, well, much more mature in age than Anita. Maybe it was my mental association of chain-smoking and fur coats with older women of a certain age and era, but with Cruella, you get the impression that bloom had fallen off the rose a long, long time ago. Could she have been beautiful when she was younger? The fashion industry seems to love tall women, high cheekbones, and unorthodox features. Her two-tone hair notwithstanding, it’s not a stretch to think Ms. de Vil might have been physically attractive (or less unattractive) when she was younger.
Naturally for imaginative me, I had subsequently formed an association between Cruella’s surname and the Cadillac DeVille, which though spelled differently, was pronounced exactly the same. If Cruella de Vil’s name was a wordplay on “cruel devil”, what was a young child without any French lessons at that point to make of the model name “DeVille”? There’s also an interesting trope whereby villains are often presented or outfitted in an affluent manner, employing the use of monocles, top hats, dark suits, and in Cruella’s case, fur coats and fancy cigarette holders. There are examples of poor or raggedy antagonists I can think of, but most of them that I can recall aren’t dressed in clothes from the Salvation Army. Ms. de Vil was clearly a woman of means at my first introduction to her when I was a kid and she was a big, loud, scary, older woman who couldn’t drive.
It has been roughly fourteen years since I had last seen our featured car parked in the neighborhood where Buena Park meets Boystown in Chicago’s north side. Examples of the downsized 1977 – ’79 Cadillac DeVille, and especially the coupe, had been semi-regular sights on the streets of Flint, Michigan when I was growing up. My family didn’t hang around a lot of wealthy people (my parents were one breadwinner and one homemaker), so there were no external influences that had guided me to like this generation of Coupe DeVille… I just did. Cadillac sold just under 122,000 Coupe deVilles for ’79, an impressive figure for a luxury car, at a time when two-door versions of some models carried more cachet than their four-door counterparts (Sedan deVille sales, at 93,000, were about 25% less). In fact, the Coupe DeVille was the single, most-popular individual model and configuration of any Cadillac sold that year.
Much like Cruella looked a bit older and worse for wear as depicted in 101 Dalmations, so did this DeVille. Its chalky silver paint was dull almost to the point of looking like primer, but its body was straight and all of its chrome and lights appeared to be present. There was a slight rake to its suspension, and its factory wheels with wire covers were eventually replaced with a set of Cragars. The car remained looking stock, otherwise. There’s a certain lurid charm that emits from a former glamourpuss like this Coupe DeVille once it no longer looks pampered or garaged. All of its little, individual details are all the more fascinating, like the “Cadillac” script on the side-view mirrors and the slight tilt of the outboard headlamp on the driver’s side. Viewed directly from the front, it’s not hard for me to see the character lines of the hood as looking like heavily sculpted and arched eyebrows staring haughtily at the guy taking its picture.
Cruella also had a problem with driving at a reasonable speed, so with 180 horsepower and 320 lb-ft of torque available from its standard 425 cubic inch V8, this 4,100 pound CDV would have moved her smartly out, even if she wasn’t going to beat anyone during any impromptu stoplight drag races. Have I mentioned that witnessing her loud, horrifying crash scene toward the end of the movie haunted me for months afterward? I don’t really consider that a spoiler since from the moment you see her barreling down the cartoon street in her car that she has something bad coming to her while driving like that.
I’ll occasionally come back across these pictures taken many years ago and I’ll wonder what ever happened to this car and/or its driver. Would I even recognize it with a proper respray and the return of its factory wheels and covers? Would a more conventional makeover have made Cruella de Vil seem less frightening, at least on the surface? I have the feeling that the answer to both questions is simply that we’ll never know.
Lakeview, Chicago, Illinois.
As photographed between November 2009 and January 2011.
Brochure pages were as sourced from www.oldcarbrochures.org.
These were great after the wonky B-pillar was corrected and before GM’s typical suicide of variable cylinder deactivation replaced by lightweight aluminum boat anchors
With regard to the B-pillar, I don’t find anything objectionable about this coupe. Did you mean the slanted B-pillar on the Fleetwood sedan? Yeah – it’s also a shame what happened to the powertrain options from 1980 on concurrent with that restyle.
You need to see the 2021 CRUELLA to fully understand. She rose from waif to Couturier with hard work and some luck. Cleverly rising to competition with The House of BARONESS, the de rigouer fashion QUEEN. I won’t spoil the film ending. But both Cruella and the Coupe de Ville could not 🎵 Stay young 🎶and Beautiful 🎵, A song frequently heard in Chicago’s Boystown in the 80s. Yes I was there and saw many Cadillacs on Clark and Broadway. But youth and beauty fade often due to circumstances of a hard life, neglect, and age resulting in a hard edge. I think you get my drift. Not in any incarnation did Cruella drive a car even close to a Cadillac, but this is a fun write up about two Immortals. THANKS for this trip down memory lane ( or maybe several memories). Today ,I turn into a Vintage 1947 Rolls Canardly, Roll down one hill and Can ardly get up the next 😉 but STILL 💪 and 🏳️🌈. Guess that in itself is a Cou de Gras. 😉 If you want to see the QUEEN of MEAN just get a glimpse of BARONESS!👑 😲
Thank you for the recommendation to see “Cruella”. I didn’t even know a live action movie had been made until I put this essay together, and I am a fan of Emma Stone. This area has changed so much since I snapped these pictures. Broadway Video was history a long time ago, and there has been much development, including a giant residential highrise next to the IHOP on the corner of Broadway and Grace, not far from where these pictures were taken.
“lurid charm”… perfect!! Rarely has the entire Brougham-aise era car era and it’s come-hither attraction to some of us been so succinctly described! Like that precociously well-developed girl in 10th grade who used a bit too much makeup and was rumored to be, well, “fast”, there’s a kind of glamour and magnetic fascination that’s not to be denied. Sure, going too far, whether it be with overly voluptuous interiors, too soft a ride, or a bit too much makeup, may display questionable taste, the attraction is there and cannot be ignored, we can’t look away, even if there may even be a hint of evil lurking behind. Hope this old girl gets her makeup renewed, in the end even a Cruella deserves some love.
Randerson, I love all of this. You nailed it.
Interesting to read. Thank you very much for that.
When I first saw the lead photo, I actually thought it was taken in the city where I live. There’s a corner there that looks strikingly similar (although without the “Broadway”).
By the way: Is anything known about if GM’s “de Ville” (= from town) influenced the naming of Ford’s “Towncar”? Or do both namegivings go back to an older, common root?
Great observation about the names of the mainstream Cadillac and Lincoln of this era, and one that has crossed my mind before. It would make total sense to me that Lincoln’s choice of “Town Car” would be a direct tit-for-tat aping of Cadillac’s “DeVille” moniker.
An aunt and uncle bought a new 78 Sedan DeVille, so I remember the entire arc of these, from shiny-New to the car you photographed. While I prefer the 80-89 model’s styling (for both coupe and sedan), the powertrain of these 1977-79 cars is what I would want. Need, actually (having experienced the later car).
For some reason, I didn’t have much exposure to 101 Dalmatians. It came out just a little soon for me to see it as a first run and home video was not a thing yet. Maybe my mother shared your take on the menacing Cruella, because this was never among the many Disney books and records I had as a kid.
JP, I used to have a strong preference for the styling of the 1980+ models (engines aside, as you mentioned), but today, it’s the original 1977 – ’79 models that speak the most to me. This might have to do with the fact that they were just a three-year design cycle (versus a hundred years), but at their core, the coupes seem to successfully balance luxury with a certain lean athleticism from a visual perspective.
I liked that when my nephews and nieces were young, it gave me the chance to revisit many of my own favorite Disney classics as well as being brought up to speed with newer ones like “Frozen”.
Here’s something I never saw in nature: slick top Coupe de Ville of this era. The opera window looks like it’s in the wrong place.
Ralph thank you for posting these pictures. The opera window does look slightly wonky, but I love the slick-top look. The only thing I could think of that would make the window look better would be to lower the lower edge of it to make a continuous line from the top of the door sill on back through the C-Pillar.
Another rare bird: full vinyl roof and standard wheel covers.
Today, Cruella would be on a “happy” pill and in group therapy for her Dalmatian tendencies, but she could still rock her ’79 CDV.
Haha! Dean I would like to think Cruella would eventually come around to seeing the benefits of therapy and take some damned accountability for herself. This CDV is beautiful. Yours, I’d presume?