Thru the Mirror

Fun Disney take on Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass." Here Mickey Mouse falls asleep reading that book, then his spirit leaves his body and goes through a mirror. On the other side of the mirror is a wacky version of Mickey's house where the inanimate objects have come to life. A lot of really cool trippy stuff follows that I don't want to spoil for you. Needless to say it's awesome to watch, especially for the time in which it was made. The animation is top-notch (it was Disney, after all). The characters and backgrounds are all well-drawn and the action is excitingly realized. Love the music, too. Fine voice work from Walt Disney. This is as wacky and creative as it gets for 1936 and I can't imagine anyone not having a good time with it. Just a fun cartoon from start to finish.

No borrowed source was more important to the success of Disney than Lewis Carroll's Alice books--from the silent Alice comedies to the beginning of its modern-day live-action remakes with Tim Burton's CGI trash--and here the parody of an adaptation is coupled with the studio's most iconic original creation, Mickey Mouse. The result arguably is more in the spirit, at least on a per-minute basis within the short cartoon, of Carroll's nonsense fairy tales than Disney's later, feature-length "Alice in Wonderland" (1951). Although it's in such a hurry to cram as many references to the books, spoofs of popular movies and other silliness into its nine minutes that it can't even be bothered to spell out the word "through," at least, of more importance, Disney spelled Carroll's name correctly this time.

The title and the book-within-the-book explicitly cite Carroll's sequel "Through the Looking Glass," but all of the deck of cards business is from the original "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Specific references to the Alice books include the narrative being framed as a dream, Mickey going through the mirror, his growing bigger and smaller from eating, anthropomorphic creatures (although often quite different ones here than in the books), clock and spiral motifs and the cards, as well as Mickey's and the proceeding's generally playful demeanor. There are even a couple puns made of Mickey's exclamations of "nuts" and "skip it," as well as the "calling all cards." There's some tap dancing, including on a top hat, as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had recently starred in "Top Hat" (1935), I guess, to compliment the parodying of Busby Berkeley musicals, swashbucklers and war films. The Queen of Hearts somewhat looks like Greta Garbo, perhaps from "Queen Christina" (1933), while the King bears a passing resemblance to Charles Laughton from "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (1933). The Technicolor looks good, too, and there's a nice sound bridge made of the anthropomorphic phone ringing within the mirror dream and the alarm clock going off on the other side. It's a clever and well-constructed cartoon.

In full Technicolor, and with music by Frank Churchill, Leight Harline, and Paul J Smith (all uncredited), Thru the Mirror is one of the masterworks of the era when Walt Disney studios could have a lot of fun while keeping toes from the silent era. A lot of what happens in this story could have been one of the black and white silent/early sound-era Mickey Mouse movies, where Mickey finds himself in some bizarre situations with cartoon things that have come to life in ways that make him dance, fight and run in chase-mode. Only here the animation has become sophisticated, due to years of practice and trial and (minimal) error, with moments like Mickey eating the walnut (aka the mushroom) that makes him grow really big and then really small.

And of course there's everything with the cards, which at first are like dancers from a Busby Berkley musical (I'm sure the animators had influences from those movies, in full formation they do it up), and then the way that Disney and his writers bring in the Queen of Hearts and the King (the latter on both bottom and top levels with swords). It's also wonderful to see all the cards chasing after Mickey; I have to wonder if the animators (or just Disney himself) knew the potential to have mass figures overpowering the flagship character, and brought it over when doing something like Fantasia, as the cards have that unstoppable-holy-crap quality of the ravenous brooms.

The imagination here is boundless, and when there are gags (the chair and its baby, the umbrella, the radio that shouts out "Calling All Cards") they work well, but ever since I saw this as a kid - and through some repeat, partly from the first Mickey Mouse VHS and play from back when the Disney channel actually played these old-time cartoons I've seen it many times - I knew it had a special quality. The pacing is electrifying, the comic timing excellent, and the music combines Big-Band Jazz, musical and adventure/chase music. In a way this is one of the great Alice adaptations, distilled to just a few points like a song, and the notes played by some smart people. Did I mention in that bright, excellent early cartoon-Technicolor to boot?

Mickey has been reading Lewis Carrol and has dozed off. This is a combination of mouse antics and the Alice story. He does battle with numerous fictional entities and seems to have a great time. Very well animated and imaginative. Mickey is at his improvisational best.

When "Thru the Mirror" begins, Mickey has just fallen asleep after reading Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass". Then, like in the story, Mickey has a dream where he, too, is able to talk through the mirror into a strange parallel world. He finds that all the furnishings in the house are alive. Next, he eats a walnut and shrinks--and has all sorts of miniature adventures. He battles against some playing cards but my favorite portion is where he tap dances--in a manner highly reminiscent o Fred Astaire. All in all, there really isn't a lot in the way of plot but the cartoon is so much fun and the animation so nice that you really don't care! Clever and fun from start to finish.