Mickey's Gala Premier

This Mickey Mouse cartoon, as well as being extremely charming, is a joy to watch if you are a 1930s movie buff. The caricatures of leading players of the time such as Clark Gable, Eddie Cantor, Wheeler and Woolsey, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Mae West, Marie Dressler, Greta Garbo, and Will Rogers are fun to spot; I especially laughed at Will Hay (film censor of the time) in regal get-up, and at the slouchy, big-footed Greta Garbo.

The film within a film, Galloping Romance, is a kind of companion piece to an earlier Mickey cartoon, Galloping Gaucho. Again Pete kidnaps Minnie and again Mickey saves the day. This film is funny, snappy, and well put-together.

'Mickey's Gale Premier' stands out from many of the other shorts made at the time because of its currency and reference to many stars. Other studios made similar forays into celebrity caricature (Warner Bros. Coo-Coo Nut Grove for one) but this one is the most successful, even if you can't place who many of the people depicted are - if you can, this cartoon is a sheer delight.

Mickey's Gala Premier (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Simple Disney short has all of Hollywood shutting down so that the major stars can show up at Grauman's Chinese Theater to see Mickey Mouse's latest movie. Mickey arrives with Minnie and Pluto but the real stars include Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Laurel and Hardy, Edward G. Robinson, Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, Joan Crawford, Joe E. Brown, Chaplin, Keaton, Mae West, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Fredric March and countless others. This isn't the greatest written cartoon ever made but the real reason to watch is for the A-list talent from Hollywood. Laurel and Hardy probably get the most screen time but the Marx Bros. get a few good jokes in as well. The stuff dealing with Greta Garbo coming onto Mickey was pretty funny but the other highlight is the twist that follows. The short features Lugosi as Dracula and Karloff as the Frankenstein monster but they really don't play too close to detail. The same is true for March who appears with them as Mr. Hyde but he looks more like a werewolf than anything else.

Already part of history as the cartoon on which the BBC pulled the plug the day war was declared; the film being premiered - a squib called 'Galloping Romance' - is of far less interest than the assembled Hollywood luminaries (including Garbo, Laurel & Hardy, the four Marx Brothers and the cast of 'Rasputin and the Empress') who arrive to make up the audience.

I love this as much as Warner Bros. 1941 "Hollywood Steps Out". The only error I see in the listing of celebrities is the audience scene after 3:15 into the cartoon. In the front left, I'd swear that's Richard Dix and NOT Chester Morris as so many have claimed.

IN AN ACTION that could be described as "one hand washing the other", Walt Disney saw the opportunity to both flatter the denizens of the Movie Colony; while at the same, time make use and exploit their familiarity with the public in producing a Mickey cartoon. The very nature of the short left very little need for any extensive plot or, as we reviewers say, a scenario.

AS ONE WOULD most likely expect, MICKEY'S GALA PREMIER is set in Los Angeles, Hollywood, California. Also, being a White-Tie affair of a Movie premier, the logical venue would be Grauman's Chinese Theatre. It was.

IT OPENS WITH rows of admiring fans crowding around and pushing to get a glimpse of the many stars in attendance. One after another, chauffeur driven limousines pull up and leave; first depositing their celebrity cargo on the red carpet. The Theatre is well represented in its own caricature, as batteries of searchlights sweep the skies.

THE FIFTY OR so movie stars & other Hollywood big-wigs present us with a most distinguished of an audience for the premiering movie in question. The characters present the animation team with a plethora of natural gags that flow almost naturally over the duration of the cartoon's eight or so minutes.

EVVRERY BIT, BE it sight-gag or verbal, seems to have been tailored to the star being lampooned. Many of the characters are limited to just appearing; which is more than enough for their "contribution" to the cartoon.

UNLIKE JUST ABOUT any other animated short, MICKEY'S GALA PREMIER has, of necessity, a "Cartoon within a Cartoon"; a storyline device that is often used in live action feature films that deal with the Film Capitol and its people. This seems to be a very standard Mickey & Minnie vs. Dirty Pete and employs a succession of standard sort of gags, with the mouse winning out in the end.

WE DON'T BELIEVE that this is an excerpt from another cartoon as that would be contrary to Disney's methods of doing things. The "cartoon" also seems to be too tightly constructed to a mere 2 or 3 minutes; without appearing to have been abridged.

THIS TITLE IS worth a screening or two, if only for the purpose of viewing and identifying the Hollywood stars being spoofed.

THERE IS SORT of a twist in the conclusion that makes all of the happenings and assemblage of talent to be rendered more believable; as if an animated cartoon short is required to be realistic!