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Alice Gets in Dutch

An Alice Comedy

Release Date : November 1, 1924

Running Time : 8:15

Synopsis

Alice misbehaves in school and is forced to sit in the corner. She falls asleep and dreams, but schoolwork intrudes even into her dreams.

Characters

Alice and Julius

Credits

DVD

United States

Disney's Alice Comedies : Volume 1

Disney Rarities: Celebrated Shorts, 1920s - 1960s

Technical Specification

Color Type: Black & White

Animation Type: Combination live-action and standard animation

Sound Mix: Silent

Aspect Ratio: 1.37 : 1

Negative Format: 35mm

Print Format: 35mm

Cinematographic Process: Spherical

Original Language: English

Released by M. J. Winkler Productions

Comments

From Ryan Kilpatrick at The Disney Film Project : So, for the second film after Ub Iwerks joined the team, would the quality hold up? In a word – no. Alice Gets In Dutch is certainly entertaining, but it falls back on tired bits from earlier Disney shorts, without really breaking new ground or creating a way for the viewer to identify with Alice.

The short opens with Alice in school, as she and the kids are singing, directed by a rather stern looking school teacher. Apparently, Alice and two of the boys are not doing it correctly, as they get called up front to sing. As best I can tell, this serves no purpose to the story of the short, and it makes me wonder why Disney included that extra minute in the film.

After that, one of the boys fills a balloon with ink and starts blowing it up, before handing it off to Alice to continue inflating it. As you would expect, the teacher confiscates it and pops it, with disastrous results.

Alice gets placed in the corner with a dunce cap, and promptly falls asleep. This is another example to me of relying on some simple ideas to get into the animation. How many times in the early shorts has Alice fallen asleep to bridge the gap from live action to animation?

Anyway, she enters the cartoon world, and we see the familiar characters from Alice the Peacemaker – the dog, the cat and the donkey, partying with Alice, dancing and singing. Also included is a bear that can detach its tail in a rather creepy way, then swallow it and have it back in place. Ugggh.

Out of a nearby school comes a caricature of the school teacher, who is incensed by the party, and sends her army of books (Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic according to the labels) after Alice and friends. The chase goes on for a while before the teacher pulls out a cannon, and they start firing cannonballs at Alice and the animals.

Alice decides to form her team into a counter army, but it’s not-yet-named-Julius the cat who comes up with the ultimate answer – a pepper cannon. He fires pepper at the books and the teacher, and the books sneeze their pages off, ending their threat. But the teacher is undeterred, and chases Alice down to begin poking her with a sword. This, of course, wakes up the real life Alice, which ends the film.

It’s not that this film is bad by itself. But when you have viewed all the previous shorts, like I have, it doesn’t show any growth from the first Laugh-O-Gram fairy tales. The same dancing motions and party scenes are used, as well as the running and jumping motions used by the teacher and the books.

One thing this short does, though, is continue the anti-authoritarian streak. Once again, the authority figure is demonized in this film, as the teacher is even given horns in the animated sequence. It’s a similar thing to the dog catcher, the king and others in previous films. At this time, Walt seems to have a high disregard for authority figures, which is something to watch out for moving forward.

From Jerry Edwards : Live action: Teacher leads students in singing. A boy fills a balloon with ink and blows air into it. He hands it to Alice, who continues to blow air into it. The teacher takes the balloon and says "This is what happens when I find balloons in my school room!". The teacher uses a pin to pop the balloon and gets ink all over her face. She puts Alice in the corner and places a dunce cap on her head. Alice falls asleep and dreams. Animation: A dog and donkey are playing while Alice and Julius the cat dance. A bear is also shown dancing. A teacher with horns and a sword, and joined by large books, chase Alice and the animals. The teacher and books shoot cannonballs at Alice and her gang. Alice's gang builds a cannon from junkyard parts and shoots pepper at the teacher's gang. The teacher and books sneeze until all the books' pages fall out and the teacher sneezes her hair off. The cannon backfires on Alice's gang, causing them to sneeze.

Julius sneezes his face off. They sneeze a hole into the ground. When the teacher (with her hair back) attacks again, the animals jump in the hole. Alice tries to climb a wall, while the teacher pokes her with the sword. Live action: Alice wakes up to the teacher poking her with a pointer.

I find the short generally boring - but it does have some good gags, and I can imagine children of that time enjoying much of the short.

From Ryan : I rather enjoy this Alice short. Alice is caught holding an ink-filled balloon in class and must sit in the corner with the dunce cap. She dreams that she and several animals are in battle with her teacher and her textbooks. This certainly portrays a teacher and homework from a child's point of view quite well. I also noticed how some of Alice's animal allies looked quite similar to those in the Four Musicians of Bremen Laugh-O-Gram.

From Gijs Grob : Alice is at school singing out of tune and blowing a balloon that contains ink. When it explodes in the teacher's face, Alice is cornered. There she falls asleep and she dreams she's making music with a cat, a dog and a donkey, until they are being attacked by a evil horned teacher and three anthropomorphized schoolbooks called 'reading', 'writing' and 'arithmetic'. The cat invents a canon to shoot pepper with. The first shot is successful, but the second one explodes in their faces, so Alice and the gang are sneezing their heads off. At that point Alice awakes. None of the animation in this short is particularly noteworthy, although the animation of the cat thinking up an invention looks quite good. The technique of combining live action and drawings is suffering in this short; at some scenes Alice is rendered so light, she's almost invisible.

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