100 Years Ago: Walt Disney’s Alice Comedies

October 16, 1923 was the release date of Alice’s Wonderland, the film that set 21 year old Walt Disney on a successful career track as a professional animator.

Previous to this, Disney had run the struggling Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City. That studio had gone under just after the one reel Alice’s Wonderland was completed. In the film, a live action girl (Virginia Davis) and a cartoon cat named Julius (a dead ringer for Felix) interact in an animated world. Just in the nick of time, Disney was able to make a distribution deal with Winkler Pictures, who had just parted ways, as it happens, with Pat Sullivan’s Felix the Cat.

57 Alice comedies were released through 1927, with four different girls playing Alice over the life of the series. Decades later, when he was at the top of his game, Disney revived the live action-animation hybrid technique for such things as Mary Poppins (1964), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).

 For more on early cinema history please see Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.