Truly Dreadful Film

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Alice Solves the Puzzle (1925) *** (out of 4)Alice and her best friend, the cat, are at the beach playing with a crossword puzzle when Bootleg Pete shows up to try and steal it. Alice seems to have been forgotten over the decades but she was Walt Disney's first star and this early animated short is certainly a charming one. I think the most interesting thing when viewing this today is just seeing how wonderful the mix of live action and animation was done. There's a scene where the cat brings up a cart like thing for the live version of Alice to get into it and just seeing how this was done will put a smile on your face. The animation itself certainly isn't what we've come to expect but we've got to remember that this is Disney at the very start. All three characters are quite memorable and make this an entertaining film.

This is the first appearance of Pete, the villain of the Disney shorts. Pete is the oldest of all the "modern" Disney characters. He first started off as a bear and later evolved into a cat. In this short, Pete (who is named Bootleg Pete) is a collector of rare crossword puzzles and Alice's puzzle is missing in his collection. Pete of course tries to get Alice to give him her crossword puzzle, but Julius the cat comes and sends Pete gliding over the sea and landing onto a buoy after a fight. Alice finally solves the puzzle by filling in THE END. I am not too interested in the silent era of Disney's animation, but I do enjoy the Alice Comedies more from a historical perspective.