"An Alice Comedy"

Release Date July 25, 1927

Running time 6:06

Synopsis

Alice and Julius on board a whaling ship where they have to deal with a tempermental cook as well as harpooning a whale.

Characters

Alice and Julius

Credits

Director : Walt Disney

Animation

Ub Iwerks

Hugh Harman

Rudolph Ising

Les Clark

Friz Freleng

Ben Clopton

Norm Blackburn

Camera

Rudolph Ising

Mike Marcus

Live Action actors

Lois Hardwick

Videos

Alice in Cartoonland (Non-Disney video - Inkwell Images)

DVD

United States

Disney Treasures : Disney Rarities: Celebrated Shorts, 1920s - 1960s

Alice in Cartoonland (Non-Disney : Inkwell Images)

Disney's Alice Comedies : Volume 3 (Non-Disney : Tom's Vintage Film)

Alice in Cartoonland (Non-Disney : VCI Home Video)

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

Comments

From Cristian Redferne : Lois Hardwick was a very expressive, vivid Alice. It is only too bad that when she was brought on board (no pun intended) Walt had begun to lose interest in his Alice Comedies, and these weren't as full of hybrid (live action and animation together) segments as the earlier efforts. Lois is in few shots here, but one can only wonder how great these last Alice Comedies would've been if they had featured her in as many hybrid segments as before. Lois appears against a generic background for the most part, generally laughing by herself. Surprisingly, there's very little of Julius as well in this cartoon. I could almost clock him in for a total of 5 seconds. Not too surprisingly, on the other hand, is that the main character in this movie is a nameless mouse. Foreshadowing. Anyway, this mouse has rather long ears, almost like a bunny. At one point he uses his ears as wings to fly after a seagull. This would be a character in between Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse. The quality of the animation supercedes all previous Alice efforts. Characters don't persistently change colours and shadings and frames don't skip. This was similar to Steamboat Willy in quality. My only other complaint asides from the under-using of Lois Hardwick was the lack of a proper ending.

From Nelson : This 1927 cartoon short was cute and amusing but there are some things I've noticed in this cartoon.For starters, actress Lois Hardwick seems to be a little too old to play Alice (she looks like a teenager in this film) also, the great animation looked like typical Bill Nolan rubber hose style animation of the mid-twenties and early thirties. One thing to point out in this film was the mouse who looked a lot like "Oswald" with his ears being exceptionally long instead of his ears being round but the mouse was very funny. This the only Alice short that I can think of that Julius appears for a short period of time, as a lookout for whales. When it comes to silent films I'm not a fan of the piano, for this cartoon there is a orchestra musical score which makes the cartoon better to watch. "Alice The Whaler" seems to me more like a Max Fleisher cartoon than a Disney cartoon with it's inanimate objects which comes to life including a scene where a cooked chicken tries to escape. The only problem with this film is the ending where the whale just drags the ship thru the waves and the cartoon fades out. There could have been a much better ending for this cartoon but the Alice series was almost at an end due to the fact that Walt Disney scored a major contract with Producer Charles Mintz to make a new cartoon series for Universal Pictures .Walt wanted to use Julius the cat but Mintz and Universal had an other idea starring a rabbit named Oswald and the rest is history.

From Ryan : While this is still a good cartoon, there are about two things that really do not fit with the title. First of all, Alice hardly makes any appearance in this film. Most of it focuses on a rat who has problems in the kitchen. The other is the fact that, while taking place on a whaling ship, only the end of the cartoon involves attempting to catch a whale. I think that a more appropriate title would be something like "Kitchen Kapers."

From Gijs Grob : A cartoon that once again begins with a musical sequence, but further consists of rather unrelated gags. This time Alice and the gang are on a ship, looking for whales. In this cartoon both Disney's character designs as the flexible animation have matured. Gone are the goggly eyes, and even one character (a cat cook) is wearing Mickey-type gloves! Also starring is a small mouse that peels potatoes just the way Mickey would do a year later in 'Steamboat Willie'. Alice has almost disappeared from the screen by now.