'Alice's Wonderland' isn't wonderful

Alice's Wonderland (1923)
Starring: Virginia Davis and Walt Disney
Director: Walt Disney
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

The night after visiting the studio where Walt Disney (Disney) and his fellow animators give life to cartoon characters, little Alice (Davis) is transported to Cartoonland as she sleeps. Here, she's treated like a superstar by the cartoon animals... except for the savage lions who want to make her their dinner!

"Alice's Wonderland" (1923) was an early effort from Walt Disney. It spawned a series that ran from 1923 through 1927, with some installments produced... although judging from what's offered in this first one it's a little surprising it even spawned one sequel. 

 
Released as part of the "Laugh-o-Gram" anthology series, each episode "Alice" merged live-action footage with animation in a similar way to what Max Fleischer had been doing with his "Out of the Inkwell" series starring Ko-Ko the Clown. Unfortunately, Fleischer's team did a much better job with this sort of thing that Disney and his cohorts were able to do. In fact, at this stage in the history of animation, and even standard filmmaking, Fleischer & Co. were far, FAR out of Disney's league.

Even at its best--when the live action footage dominates over the animated during the film's first few minutes--this film is clumsy and pedestrian when compared to even early "Out of the Inkwell" installments. From the very beginning, Fleischer attempted to seamlessly merge reality and animation, while Disney barely attempts that, instead mostly keeping the animated characters on a page, even if they are able to interact and acknowledge the "real people" beyond their two-dimensional world. There is nothing like the overlapping of animation and live footage that is commonplace in the Fleischer films.

Where "Alice's Wonderland" truly fails, though, is in the animation department. The jokes and sight gags are uninspired, the character designs are lazy, and the animation is so lazy that it makes the film unintentionally creepy: Most of the animated characters have dead, lifeless eyes and faces. The parade scene from which the still illustrating this review was taken becomes unintentionally creepy because no one blinks, no one shifts their heads to look at Alice as she passes by... they just stand there, frozen. In fact, the parade ends up feeling a bit like some sort of time loop, as the elephant-riding Alice passes the same group of onlookers, over and over, as they stand paralyzed. Alice may be oblivious to the horror of the situation, but I wasn't.

A perhaps even bigger problem is that the second half of the film is made up of sequences that go on entirely too long. Even the amusing climactic chase scene--with Alice fleeing or fighting a pack of hungry lions--goes on and on and on for long enough to become tedious.

"Alice's Wonderland" is yet another early effort from Walt Disney that makes me think he might have been far better at spotting, hiring, and managing creative talent than doing the creating himself. It's another of his early films that has moments, but the overall the bad drags down the good.

But don't just take my word for all of that. Take a few minutes to watch the film for yourself. Let us all know in the comments below if you agree or disagree with my take. (Meanwhile, I'll watch a few more entries in this series to see if they get better and more competently executed as time goes by.)