Alice's Wonderland
About Alice's Wonderland
Alice, played by Virginia Davis, visits the Laugh-O-Gram studio in Kansas City. Walt Disney and the other animators show her drawings that move: a cat dancing with a band, a mouse poking a cat, and mice boxing while the men cheer. That night she dreams of a train to cartoon-land. A parade meets her and she rides an elephant. The drawings dance, and she dances for them. Lions get out of the zoo and chase her into a hollow tree, a cave, and a rabbit hole.
Cast & crew
More about Alice's Wonderland
Walt Disney directed and produced the short at Laugh-O-Gram Studio under the working title Alice in Slumberland. It was not given a theatrical release. Disney showed it to distributors as a pilot for the Alice Comedies. Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, and Rudolf Ising worked on the animation. Margaret Davis, Virginia’s mother, appears. Margaret Winkler later took the series after Laugh-O-Gram failed and Disney had gone to California.
Themes
Making
The reel was the last film made at the failing Kansas City studio, and the sample Disney kept sending out until Winkler Pictures ordered more Alice shorts.
Look
The Kansas City studio visit is live action, cut against the animation of the drawings and the dream of cartoon-land.
Technique
Virginia Davis stays in live action while the animals, the parade, and the lions are drawn around her.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles. Alexander Rannie wrote a score that was added in 1999.
Preservation
The pilot survives. A copy is on the Internet Archive, and another is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Ub Iwerks, Rudolf Ising, Hugh Harman, and Walt Disney appear on screen with Virginia Davis.
- Carman Maxwell painted backgrounds.
- EOFFTV credits a score by Alexander Rannie added in 1999.
- Extracts turn up in The Walt Disney Story (1973) and Walt: The Man Behind the Myth (2001).
Scenes
- The animators show Alice a cat band, a mouse, and a boxing match on the boards.
- In the dream she rides an elephant in a welcoming parade.
- Lions chase her into a hollow tree, a cave, and a rabbit hole.
Also available
- Internet Archive (AlicesWonderland)
- Wikimedia Commons (Alice's Wonderland (1923) 02.webm)
