Alice and the Dog Catcher

"An Alice Cartoon"

Release Date July 1, 1924

Running Time 12:26

Synopsis

Alice presides over a secret club which proposes to rid the town of dog catchers and free the dogs!

Characters

Alice and Julius

Credits

Director : Walt Disney

Animation

Walt Disney

Rollin "Ham" Hamilton

Live Action Camera : Harry Forbes

Live Action Actors

Virginia Davis

Leon Holmes

Tommy Hicks

Joe Allen

Peggy the Dog

DVD

Disney's Alice Comedies : Volume 1 (Non-Disney : Tom's Vintage Film)

Technical Specifications

Color Type : Black and White

Animation type : Combination live-action and standard animation

Sound mix : Silent

Aspect ration : 1.37 : 1

Negative format : 35mm

Print format : 35mm

Cinematographic process : Spherical

Original language : English

Released by M. J. Winkler Productions

Gallery

Click on the thumbnail for the full-sized picture

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : LA equals Live Action. A equals Animation. LA: Alice and her gang go thru their rituals in their secret club. At the start, they were grocery bags over their heads. One jarring note - the black member wears a bag with a black face on it. One member arrives and tells everyone the dog catchers are catching the neighborhood dogs. Alice imagines a dog being turned into sausages. A: Dog catcher uses music to lure young dogs to his truck. He mallets each and throws them into the truck. He chases one dog who dives into a rabbit hole. The dog catcher finally tricks the dog and throws him into the truck. The parent dogs are shown worried about their sons - the dad pacing back and forth and the mom crying. LA: The gang are crying as Alice continues to tell the story. A: Alice tells the parent dogs that she'll rescue their sons. She tries to sweet talk the "prison guard" to let her into the dog pound. The guard bayonets her, causing her to fall into a cactus. She sees a pile of bombs marked TNT and throws a bomb at the prison. The building explodes, with the sky full of "raining" dogs, the guard, and pieces of the building. Among the dogs is a string of sausages. The mom welcomes her sons home. The "sausage dog" is welcomed by "Oscar!! My darling!!" LA: Alice tells the gang they're going to rescue the dogs from the dog catchers. A dog from the club house opens the cage of the truck and lets the dogs out. While the two dog catchers are chasing most of the gang, Alice and two of the gang try to destroy the truck. They start the truck and it starts rolling out of control down the hilly street. The truck destroys a fruit peddler's cart and chases the fruit peddler. The dog catchers try to catch the truck and manage to jump on just as the truck goes down a steep hillside and crashes. The gang looks down and laughs at them.

An enjoyable story and well done for its time. I can imagine kids in particular getting a great deal of enjoyment from the short.

From Kai Tooie : I give it a 10 rating first on it being a true vintage classic, and also because I did not know that it was possible at that time to mix film and cartoon. The shots with Anna super-imposed upon the cartoon really surprised me.

The chase scene is great too, particularly with the camera on the back of the car as the kids are trying to avoid (or were they really trying to run down) the fruit vendor and his cart. The hill shots were good also, actually gave me the feeling I was going downhill with them at one point.

By the way, those hill shots look as if they were made on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco.

And Anna looked like a very young Mary Pickford.

The gang of kids reminded me very much of the American serial "Spanky and Our Gang." Don't know which one came first though.

On the downside, I did not understand the purpose of the opening about the Klu Klux Klan. Everything else about the movie was clear without being able to read the subtitles.

Only negative comments I have are that the action was slow in points and the plot was very predictable, but those two issues are more than made up for by the quality of the movie when one considers the era in which it was produced.

I have seen "Alice the Dog Catcher" and would like to submit a comment on this short