Alice and the Dog Catcher

In the 1920s, Walt Disney's first big success was with his Alice films. The formula consisted of the cute little girl, Alice (Virginia Davis), interacting with a cartoon world...much like in "You Ought to Be in Pictures" (1940) "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988). However, oddly, very little of "Alice and the Dog Catcher" is animated compared to the other films in the series....and the first portion looks more like a knockoff the the Our Gang comedies...which it clearly was.

When the story begins, Alice is hanging out with her Hal Roach inspired friends. Naturally, there is a black kid (like Farina or Sunshine Sammy or Buckwheat), a fat kid (like Joe Cobb or Chubby) and the like. A few of these scenes are a bit hard to believe today...such as the club being called 'KKK' (it did NOT stand for the Klan, fortunately). During this portion, she leads the kids in an effort to torment and almost kill the dog catcher....who is just some guy trying to do his job. There is also an animated portion about dogs that begins about five minutes into the short film.

There were several problems with this film. First, there just wasn't enough of the cute animation....making it a lesser Alice movie. Second, it isn't all that funny and the kids are pretty evil. Not a bad film...just not a very good short and Disney and his staff clearly were capable of better.

In the 1920s, Walt Disney's first big success was with his Alice films. The formula consisted of the cute little girl, Alice (Virginia Davis), interacting with a cartoon world...much like in "You Ought to Be in Pictures" (1940) "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988). However, oddly, very little of "Alice and the Dog Catcher" is animated compared to the other films in the series....and the first portion looks more like a knockoff the the Our Gang comedies...which it clearly was.

When the story begins, Alice is hanging out with her Hal Roach inspired friends. Naturally, there is a black kid (like Farina or Sunshine Sammy or Buckwheat), a fat kid (like Joe Cobb or Chubby) and the like. A few of these scenes are a bit hard to believe today...such as the club being called 'KKK' (it did NOT stand for the Klan, fortunately). During this portion, she leads the kids in an effort to torment and almost kill the dog catcher....who is just some guy trying to do his job. There is also an animated portion about dogs that begins about five minutes into the short film.

There were several problems with this film. First, there just wasn't enough of the cute animation....making it a lesser Alice movie. Second, it isn't all that funny and the kids are pretty evil. Not a bad film...just not a very good short and Disney and his staff clearly were capable of better.There are better Alice films out there than this one.

By the way, I notice there are two reviews. One talks about this being a truncated version and in the original, the dog catcher grinds the dogs up into sausages. If this is true, then it certainly is understandable why the kids actually try to kill him in addition to releasing the dogs. However, I am not sure about this, as they also say in the truncated version there's very little Alice....but she's in virtually every scene just as Nightmarechicken said!

In the 1920s, Walt Disney's first big success was with his Alice films. The formula consisted of the cute little girl, Alice (Virginia Davis), interacting with a cartoon world...much like in "You Ought to Be in Pictures" (1940) "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988). However, oddly, very little of "Alice and the Dog Catcher" is animated compared to the other films in the series....and the first portion looks more like a knockoff the the Our Gang comedies...which it clearly was.

When the story begins, Alice is hanging out with her Hal Roach inspired friends. Naturally, there is a token black kid (like Farina or Sunshine Sammy or Buckwheat), a fat kid (like Joe Cobb or Chubby) and the like. A few of these scenes are a bit hard to believe today...such as the club's name (apparently I cannot even give the name as it violates IMDB's standards). During this portion, she leads the kids in an effort to torment and almost kill the dog catcher....who is just some guy trying to do his job. There is also an animated portion about dogs that begins about five minutes into the short film.

There were several problems with this film. First, there just wasn't enough of the cute animation....making it a lesser Alice movie. Second, it isn't all that funny and the kids are pretty evil. Not a bad film...just not a very good short and Disney and his staff clearly were capable of better.There are better Alice films out there than this one.

By the way, I notice there are two reviews. One talks about this being a truncated version and in the original, the dog catcher grinds the dogs up into sausages. If this is true, then it certainly is understandable why the kids actually try to kill him in addition to releasing the dogs. However, I am not sure about this, as they also say in the truncated version there's very little Alice....but she's in virtually every scene just as Nightmarechicken said!

This is an excellent cartoon with very good animation. It's hard to believe this was made in 1924, and certainly shows that Walt Disney was an incredibly talented animator. In this cartoon, two cruel dog-catchers catch pooches and heartlessly turn them into sausage until finally a clever detective saves the day. Unfortunately, the only version of this cartoon that I was able to find in the US was greatly edited and included only the animated portion with very little of the Alice sequences, possibly because the Alice segments contained material that is now considered very politically incorrect. What was left was still a charming little cartoon, but had almost no Alice and little live action incorporated into the animation.

Not sure what film one of the other reviewers has seen - but it can't be "Alice & The Dog Catcher".

Alice (played by Mildred Davis lookalike Virgina Davis - her sister perhaps?) appears throughout - more so than in most Alice cartoons from Disney. The film plays far more like one of the Our Gang comedies from the Hal Roach studio. Animation is limited to a very short section in the middle of the film where Alice tells a story of a cartoon dog-catcher and how she rescued a family of pups from his castle stronghold (no kidding!) Animation is limited but the integration of the live-action Alice is excellent.

The majority of the film (about two thirds) is live action - a parallel tale of Alice and her version of Our Gang (complete with very similar children) and how they rescue a group of dogs from a pair of dog catchers. It comes across more as a live-action silent comedy with a brief animated interlude. Virgina Davis as Alice appears in virtually every scene.

Film ends with a hair-raising car chase, featuring some excellent stunt work plus some rare views of Los Angeles circa 1924. It should also be noted the film features a series of bizarre and distasteful Klu Klux Klan gags at the beginning - very odd.

Interesting to compare this film to the later Mickey Mouse cartoon "The Worm Turns" which also features a dog catcher theme. All in all an unusual Alice cartoon, well worth seeking out for it's curiosity value alone.