Review by Cineanalyst

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."