50 years after its initial release, Walt Disney's doggy romance Lady And The Tramp is still utterly beguiling. Barbara Luddy voices the pedigreed Cocker Spaniel who falls for a free-spirited mongrel voiced by Larry Roberts. But it was famed jazz singer Peggy Lee who stole the show, singing toe-tapping ditties that she composed with veteran songwriter Sonny Burke. This special Anniversary Edition restores the film to its full Technicolor glory.

Dog Days

Lady's Pedigree is an absorbing hour-long documentary that begins by setting the scene in Marceline, Missouri, which is where the story is set, but also happens to be where Mr Disney himself spent the best part of his childhood. As animation historian John Canemaker points out, this helps to explain why the film presents "a very nostalgic vision of what America is, or could be". Other Disney experts take us from the development of the story (from as far back as the 30s) through to the design process, voice recordings and final animation.

Perfectly complementing the documentary are excerpts from the Disneyland TV show, which add up to 40 minutes of rare and fascinating archive footage (most of it in colour). Walt presents the show himself, taking us on a detailed behind-the-scenes journey on Lady And The Tramp that includes eavesdropping on a storyboard session where writers and animators hammer out the specifics of a key scene. Although it feels a bit staged, it's still a great historical document. On top of that, we get to sit in on rehearsal sessions with Sonny Burke and the legendary Peggy Lee while Barbara Luddy loops dialogue in the sound booth.

Lee pops up again in a featurette dedicated to The Siamese Cat Song, charting the process of song development using recently unearthed test tracks.

Ruff Ideas

Archivists have also dusted off a presentation of freshly uncovered storyboards for a condensed, Jackanory-style retelling of the tale. Meanwhile a featurette on The Art Of The Storyboard pays tribute to the unsung heroes of the animation house. Apparently, storyboarding was a technique pioneered by Walt Disney in preparation for Mickey Mouse's 1928 debut in Steamboat Willie.

Two deleted scenes are presented in their original storyboard format with full scoring and the benefit of original voice recordings by Luddy and co. In a detailed introduction, it's revealed that a sequence where giant dogs take their owners for walkies was eventually scrapped because it got "an adverse reaction" from a test audience. The other scene is actually an extended version of the baby arrival that gets Lady anxious about losing her place in the family.

For kids there's plenty of interactive fun, including a trivia game and a personality test that matches you to a breed of dog! For educational value as well as fun, comic actor Fred Willard gives Barbara Woodhouse a run for her money in PuppyPedia, covering everything you wanted to know about the canine species. A design gallery and vintage trailers supplement this typically generous Disney package, but this DVD is also set apart by having so much firsthand access to Walt's dream factory. Disney fans would be barking mad to miss it.

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