Alice in Movieland

As short subjects go, ALICE IN MOVIELAND is easy to take. After all, who doesn't mind gazing at JOAN LESLIE at her prettiest, showing us all the wholesome charm that did indeed make her a movie star in the '40s under contract to Warner Bros.

But unfortunately, the script (by no less than Ed Sullivan) is a cluster of clichés--you know, the one about the kid who dreams of making it big in Hollywood and dreams about becoming the toast of the town. Leslie, enroute to Hollywood via train, falls asleep and dreams that she has this great impact on filmland after a few false starts. Her dream is all wrapped up in tinsel but is mostly a series of phony myths about Hollywood stardom for young girls.

You can glimpse a few Warner contract players throughout--including David BRUCE, CRAIG STEVENS, ALEXIS SMITH, JANE WYMAN, RONALD REAGAN, FRANK FAYLEN and ALAN HALE. But it's strictly a showcase for Joan Leslie, who plays the part of a naive girl seeking stardom. Her singing voice is obviously dubbed and her dancing is no great shakes.

In real life, Leslie had to work hard to gain stardom, appearing in numerous films in bit parts before any big breaks came her way. But the story is reminiscent of how ANN SHERIDAN got her start--by entering a beauty contest that brought her to the attention of Warner Bros.

This 21 minute short, directed by Jean Negulesco and photographed by Ted McCord, is a fun way to look at the way mythical film stardom was treated for the sake of naive movie fans back in the early '40s.

Not exactly a bunch of A listers for this airbrushed show biz dream that TCM annoyingly keeps using as hamburger helper to fill out half hour gaps in their schedule instead of coming up with new original programming. Let's see, you've got Alexis Smith, hubby Craig Stevens, Alan Hale, and the Reagans looking like they're already contemplating divorce. This thing feels more like a nightmare episode of the Ed Sullivan show and bears about as much resemblance to Mulholland Drive as does Lincoln Blvd.

I liked this short even though some may find it a bit too sappy and old fashioned. However, I like it because it's a wonderful eye into the idea of Hollywood from 1940--not the real city, but the way it was viewed by the wide-eyed public and how Hollywood packaged itself. Joan Leslie stars as "Alice Purdee"--a country girl who wins a local contest whose reward is a Hollywood screen test. In so many ways, this short is like a condensed version of A STAR IS BORN minus the Norman Main character. I find the whole thing very charming, as would anyone who is a fan of Hollywood's Golden Age. My bet is that newer, younger audiences will probably find it all a bit silly and over-done, but considering what the film was intended to portray, the "schmaltziness" is actually a big plus--it helps you to understand the dreams of thousands, if not millions of girls across the nation.

Alice in Movieland (1940)

*** (out of 4)

Two-reeler from Warner about a small town girl (Joan Leslie) who arrives in Hollywood hoping to become a star but she suffers one disaster after another. When she finally gets a bit part in a film she lets her dreams go too far and this here leads to another embarrassment. This is an interesting little short for a number of reasons but the biggest is because of how painful and rather embarrassing it treats the main character. A lot of shorts were made about young girls coming to Hollywood but this one here is rather painful to watch because Leslie is so good in her role that we really start to care for it and it's rather sad seeing some of the jokes pulled on her. The film manages to have some nice backbone to it and it really has some great drama. Leslie is terrific in her role as the dreamy kid and we even get Clarence Muse as a train porter who gives her some sound advice. Alan Hale, Ronald Reagan, Craig Stevens, Alexis Smith and Jane Wyman appear in a brief scene at a club where Leslie is about to act. It's obvious the stars were filmed at other times and just edited into this film but it's still nice seeing them. Fans of older movies will certainly want to check this one out as there's a lot more soul and heart than you'd normally see in a film like this.

Joan Leslie wins a screen test, but loses the audition. She sticks it out thanks to the words of Nana Bryant.

Miss Leslie was 15 when this short subject came out, but was already in her fourth year of working in the movies. Her career was about to take off, with featured roles for the next couple of years, although her stardom would begin to fade towards the end of the decade. For the moment, she was a hopeful ingenue, doing imitations of Zasu Pitts and Katherine Hepburn, and dreaming this will be the start of something big. It's a sort of anti-A STAR IS BORN, with Miss Leslie somehow gifted with a singing range wider than Deanna Durbin.