Directed by Walt Disney
Starring Virginia Davis
Produced by Walt Disney Productions
As I thought about approaching my first Walt Disney-created footage, I reflected on the animator's place in film history. There are obvious cinematic pioneers like D.W. Griffith, Orson Welles, Martin Scorsese... but I think Disney has got to be in the conversation at least. He was a pioneer of not just animation, but musicals and camera movement (albeit drawn at 24 frames a second). Half a century later, he is still the producer of the definitive versions of Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Pinocchio. Seeing how I can't get my kids interested in anything over 12 hours old, that's a feat.
All that as prologue to say how disappointed I was in my experience watching these Disney cartoons.
In Alice's Day at Sea, an alarm clock comes to life to wake up Alice's dog, who dresses himself and wakes up Alice. The dog then drives Alice (yes, you read that right) to the beach where she talks to a sailor and falls asleep in a boat. She awakens to discover her boat has been whisked out to sea where it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. She interacts with animated fish and a menacing octopus, before waking up to discover it was all a dream and she's still on.
In Alice's Spooky Adventure, she's playing with a group of kids when their ball flies into the window of a spooky old house. Alice is the only one with the courage to go and retrieve the ball. Once in the house, she encounters a box that moves on its own (thanks to the black cat inside it). She ends up covered in a sheet, looking like a ghost, before pulling off the impromptu costume and having a ceiling collapse on her. Unconscious, she dreams of an animated haunted town where she is being chased by ghosts. One of the ghosts asks her to "take it off" (minds out of the gutter, people!) and under the sheet is a black cat. Alice and the cat successfully battle the ghosts and the cat professes his love for her, kissing her hand. Alice awakes to find the black cat from earlier is licking her hand. She finds the ball and runs out to find a policeman who noticed the broken window. The officer takes Alice to jail for the crime.
First, the good. I think some of the live action sequences that bookend the cartoons are interesting and humorous. There are some subtle and innovative animation and effects incorporated into those sequences that work. Disney takes Alice's dog and makes him a real character (in fact, he's a lot like a real life version of Mickey Mouse's pet Pluto). I found myself wishing the cartoons were about the dog and not Alice.
The animated sequences that are the meat of the films come off as a pale imitation of the Fleischer Brothers' Out of the Inkwell series. Where that series has some truly remarkable interaction between the cartoon and real worlds, here Alice basically stands around looking cute in the middle of the animated environment. There is not a lot of physical contact between the worlds and when they do touch, it's not a great effect. It seems like a step backward.
Virginia Davis (Alice) looks the part, but is not that great an actress. When she stretches after waking up, it looks exactly like someone telling a kid to pretend they are waking up. Of course, for most of the film, she's just pointing and laughing at things going on around her so it's not like there is much heavy lifting.
The narrative here is just an excuse to get to the animation. And the animation is that style that annoys me. I get why in the early days of the medium they had a lot of repeated movements (you can reuse the same drawings), but it makes me impatient watching it.
Overall, these feel more like exercises in film-making than actual short films. I loved everything with the dog, but that was about it. I'll probably check out more in future years to see if there's a progression, but so far I am underwhelmed.
Alice's Day at Sea: ** out of *****
Alice's Spooky Adventure: *1/2 out of *****
NOTE: While Alice's Day at Sea was the first released short, it was not the first one Disney made. He created Alice's Wonderland with Davis in the lead role while heading up Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, MO. The studio went bankrupt, Disney moved to Los Angeles where he raised money to get a fresh start and he asked Davis' family to relocate. The rest is history.
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