Alice's Day at Sea

Being apparently the first of the Alice comedies to be theatrically released, although it's not nearly as interesting as the un-released "Alice's Wonderland" (1923) that was used to show to prospective film distributors, "Alice's Day at Sea" ushers in the dawn of the Disney company. After the bankruptcy of his Laugh-O-Gram Studio, Walt Disney began his new, namesake production company making these early efforts at combining live-action and animation. Loosely inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice books, there really isn't much of a connection with the classic children's literature after "Alice's Wonderland," besides both having a little girl named Alice and her dreaming up nonsensical adventures.

In "Alice's Day at Sea," that includes the live-action Alice (except for extreme long-shot views, where she's drawn along with everything else) touring an undersea world. There's also some good mixing of animation and live action from the beginning with the dog, who turns out to be Alice's chauffeur, waking up in his dog house. An animated dream bubble reveals the dog to be initially interpreting his alarm clock as wood being sawed. Later, there's an animation clip serving as a remembrance, which is made in the style of chalkboard animation.

There was already a long cinema tradition by this time of underwater films: Georges Méliès made "The Kingdom of the Fairies" (1903) and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1907), while Pathé made "Down in the Deep" (1907). In 1916, the Williamson brothers employed underwater photography for Universal's adaptation of Jules Verne's Captain Nemo novels. In this underwater dream of Alice's, after initially enjoying watching the fish go about their business, she's chased by a shark and is ensnared by an octopus. Today, it still looks better than "Baby Shark."

This cute short film was directed by Walt Disney hinself and was the first project created by the Disney Brothers Studio. I was surprised how pleasant it was, not just a historic curiousity. It combines live action parts, animated ones, and others that conbined both. It is starred by Alice, played by Virginia Davis, and her trained dog, who I loved! It is part of Alice Comedies Series, being the second one and first to have theatrical release (the former, Alice's Wonderland, without a theatrical release, was made in another studio, in Kansas, which went bankrupt and shut down). The film is on public domain and may be easily found.

This is one of earliest entries in Walt Disney's Alice in Cartoonland series, and it's different from the others I've encountered. The distinctive gimmick of the series was that Alice, a real girl, would interact with cartoon animals. In the shorts I've seen most of the footage is animated, looking very much like typical cartoons of the period, only with the addition of a live-action Alice who pops up at odd moments. Here, however, the first half of the short is entirely live action. After a few minutes, you may begin to wonder how this qualifies as a "Cartoonland" short.

The film begins with an amusing sequence involving Alice's dog. He wakes up, drops his alarm clock into a garbage bin, and shimmies into his harness. Next we meet Alice herself (blonde Virginia Davis), who travels with the dog in a kiddie car to the beach. There they chat with a friendly sailor, who tells them about the time his ship was pulled to the bottom of the sea by an octopus. The tall tale he relates is animated, but in a very rudimentary fashion, like something drawn on a chalkboard. When the sailor is called away, Alice and her dog climb into a beached sailboat and promptly fall asleep.

The girl and her dog are charming, and the tone is akin to an Our Gang comedy. As Alice falls asleep, the cartoon proper begins. She dreams she's on a ship at sea, tossed about by a wild storm. Abruptly, her ship sinks straight to the bottom. Alice swims out of the wreckage unharmed, and observes the sea creatures around her. Some fish are having a party, playing music and dancing. We also find some very odd looking creatures, zoo animals such as elephants, giraffes, etc., only with mermaid-like fins. A fish in a cop uniform directs traffic-a gag that would return in many subsequent cartoons. But danger rears its ugly head: first, a sinister octopus appears and threatens Alice, then a large fish attempts to swallow her whole. Just as things look bleak, naturally enough, Alice awakens and finds that all is well.

This is a pleasant short for the most part, although one macabre gag took me by surprise: it's a shock when the octopus seizes an inoffensive fish, slices him in two, and gobbles up half his remains. Whoa, that's pretty harsh! Otherwise, the humor is low-key and innocuous. Alice's Day at Sea is lightly amusing, not especially memorable, but of interest to animation buffs, and anyone curious about the early days of the Disney phenomenon.