Alice strikes out in the cartoon big league

Alice in the Big League (1927)
Starring: Lois Hardwick
Director: Walt Disney
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Alice proves herself to be the worst baseball umpire in Cartoonland.

A few weeks ago, I posted a review of "Alice's Wonderland" (1923).  In it, I commented that I hoped the "Alice" series would improve over its 50+ episode run. By sheer chance, I recently came across the final entry in the series. Titled "Alice in the Big League" in was released in 1927. It was once considered a lost film, but now there are several different versions available on YouTube.

That said, I can't really recommend it. It's like Disney and his animators stretched three-four minutes of material to fill the eight-minute running time with looped animation, by pounding gags to death, and otherwise delivering a product that makes the Van Beuren output from around this same time absolutely brilliant and the conceptually similar "Out of the Inkwell" series from Fleischer the product of the gods themselves.

 
Although the animated characters aren't as creepily lifeless as they were in the early "Alice" episodes--their eyes aren't quite as dead here as they were in "Wonderland--the degree of integration between the live-action footage and animation has not improved at all. It might even have gotten worse. Take a look at the still used at the top of this post and then look at this one: 

You'd think Alice would be somewhere behind the pitcher mound in the long shot of the game, but she isn't. Even worse, the animators drew a shadow for the soap box the pitcher is standing in, but not one for Alice. This persistent continuity glitch annoys probably more than it should, but it's the most glaring sign that this series probably never came close to "Out of the Inkwell" in quality. Even the film's final moment--where Alice flees cartoon characters enraged by her bad calls--is sloppily done.

On the positive side, I found the various visual gags relating to baseball amusing, and, if the various sequences hadn't be dragged out beyond all reason, I think I would have loved the variety of ways the cartoon characters cheated at the game. Naturally, Alice never called them on the cheating though; all of her calls for of the "umpire, are you blind?!?!" variety. Also, a little more effort appears to have gone into the crowds than in early episodes, and I previously mentioned that the characters didn't seem quite as dead inside as those in the first installment did. But I'm not sure if the visual gags and slightly better animation are enough for you to devote eight minutes of your life to watching this weak effort. The only people I could recommend this short film to are those committed to watching EVERY available "Alice in Cartoonland" film, EVERY baseball-based comedy, or those who love baseball gags so much they thought the "NUELOW Baseball Special" equal parts funny and informative. (Actually, and this might be perceived as arrogant and self-serving, but I think this booklet by L.L. Hundal, Sam Hamm, and myself is far funnier than "Alice in the Big League". Some of the same gags are even implemented better in our product than in the cartoon.)

As mentioned above, "Alice in the Big League" was the final entry in this series. Maybe there was less effort put into this one than others for that reason, so there might still be some better ones between the very first "Alice in Cartoonland" and this last one. I will be watching a few more to find out.

 I am hoping that I DO find some better installments of the series. Although we don't get to see much of Lois Hardwick, who plays Alice in the one, we do see enough to give me the impression that she's a better actress than the original Alice. 

If you want to judge the quality of this cartoon for yourself, or want to watch a film that was once considered lost, it's embedded below for easy viewing!