Disney's Alice Comedies were a series of short films released during the 1920s. They featured Alice (a live-action girl) and Julius (an animated
cat who resembled Felix the Cat) in a cartoon world.
Walt Disney's previous Laugh-O-Gram animated series - produced in
Kansas City - had been popular but financially unsuccessful.
(Laugh-O-Grams filed for bankruptcy in May 1923.)
In order to rise above his debts, Walt was forced to seek outside
projects. One of these projects was a dental hygiene film titled
Tommy Tucker's Tooth (produced for a Kansas City dentist). Walt used
the $500 he earned from this dental short to produce a film called
Alice's Wonderland (a half-finished Laugh-O-Gram project).
Walt enlisted a young Kansas City actress named Virginia Davis and
put all his effort into the new film. Alice's Wonderland, a silent
black & white film combining live-action and animation, was never
released theatrically. But it did serve a purpose ... it was shown
privately to cartoon distributors in 1923.
One of these distributors was Margaret J. Winkler, a woman from New York who had been successfully distributing Felix the Cat. Walt (now
living in California) signed with M. J. Winkler on October 16, 1923
(this date became the formal beginning of The Walt Disney Company).
Walt and his brother Roy enthusiastically immersed themselves into producing the first batch of Alice Comedies.
The Disney Brothers Studio was set up in a garage on Kingswell Ave
in Hollywood, California. As they had no staff to help produce the
first six shorts, Walt animated the films all by himself and Roy worked
the camera for the live-action sequences. There were no rehearsals for the live-action filming and usually no more than a single take was shot
as the Disneys did not have enough film to reshoot! The first,
Alice's Day at Sea was released on March 1, 1924.
Fifty-six Alice Comedies were produced between 1923 and 1927. By
the time Alice the Peacemaker was in production in 1924, Disney
had built a studio staff that now included animators Ub Iwerks and
Rollin "Ham" Hamilton, and camera operator Harry Forbes.
Over the years 4 different young actresses - Virginia Davis,
Dawn O'Day, Margie Gay, and Lois Hardwick - portrayed Alice.
Virginia Davis, from Kansas City, first began working for Walt when
she was just 6-years-old. She appeared in the first 13 titles of the Alice Comedies. (Davis later did voice testing for Snow White as well as
some of the little boys' voices in Pinocchio.) She became a Disney
Legend in 1998.
Dawn O'Day - whose birth name was Dawn Evelyn Paris - only played
Alice in the 1925 release Alice's Eggplant. As an adult actress she appeared in over 30 features under the name Anne Shirley.
(She is the mother of actress Julie Payne.)
Margie Gay appeared as Alice from February, 1925 to December,
1926. Unlike the others, Margie had a short, straight black hairstyle
with bangs over her forehead.
When she left, Walt hired Lois Hardwick to play the part of Alice.
(She went on to become the first wife of actor Donald Sutherland.)
The final Alice Comedy Alice in the Big League was released in Summer 1927. At this point Disney's staff also included Les Clark (who would
become one of Walt's "Nine Old Men") and Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising
(the duo who would become famous for starting the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studios).
Walt and Roy enjoyed moderate success with these shorts, thus
enabling them to set-up a larger studio on Hyperion Avenue in
February 1926. Alice Comedies proved to be a major stepping stone
in Walt and Roy's career.
DISNEY'S ALICE COMEDIES
Before there was Mickey Mouse and Snow White,
there was Alice.
"Alice, you're the greatest!"
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A THIS DAY IN DISNEY HISTORY SPECIALTY PAGE
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