'Alice the Jail Bird' is pretty good

Alice the Jail Bird (1925)
Starring: Margie Gay
Director: Walt Disney
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

After stealing a pie and getting caught by the police, Alice and two of her cartoon animal friends are sentenced to prison and hard labor.

"Alice the Jail Bird" is a simple and straight-forward short film that I think will be appreciated even by the modern members of its target audience--six- and seven-year-old kids--more than it will by adults. That said, I think even little kids will be frustrated by the numerous sequences that drag on beyond the point where they are interesting, as well as wonder why one of the three companions is ignored and left behind during the inevitable jailbreak.

Another flaw, although a purely technical one that may bother me more than most viewers, is the poorly executed integration of animation and live action footage. While Alice does interact more with the animated characters than she does in several other entries in the series, the combination of live-action and animation still pales in comparison to the conceptually similar series from the Fleischer Studios, Out of the Inkwell featuring Ko-Ko the Clown. The film also sloppily breaks with its own conceit when live-action Alice is replaced with an animated Alice in the "long shots". Although I doubt it is something that will annoy the target audience--if they even notice--but it annoyed me enough to knock a Star off my rating. The scenes where Live-Action Alice is replaced by Animated Alice also happen to be the ones where there's the greatest degree of action and interaction between Alice and the animated world. It's a shame that Disney didn't have the budget or the technical know-how/equipment to keep the Alice character purely live action, because some of the sequences in this film would have been amazing. As it is, it's just an annoying bit of incompetence that breaks the consistency of the imaginary world of the series.

Despite its flaws, this is still one of the better entries I've seen of this series. The events all tie together to form a fairly coherent story and most of the gags serve action that moves the story forward. Even better, the character of Alice has a role that warrants her name being in the title; she is not central to all the action, but she is a central mover to the plot. 

What I enjoyed the most about "Alice the Jail Bird", though, is the nutty cartoon-world physics that's on display throughout the film. While some of the gags are stretched beyond what's good for them, they remain great examples of the surreal weirdness that makes even these weaker shorts from the 1920s and 1930s still worth watching.
 

And speaking of watching -- you can watch "Alice the Jail Bird" right here in this post. Just click below and sit back.