oscaralbert Review of Alice in Movieland

Alice in Movieland (1940)

"If you come home before you're a movie star . . . "

[7/10 · 9 July 2015]

" . . . I'll break your neck--(signed) Grandma." It's as if Auntie Em told Dorothy Gale to jump off a cliff if she could not tote the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West back to Kansas! In the 1940s, there were fewer than 100 million Americans, since so many did themselves in as they buckled under the pressure of unrealistic expectations imposed upon them by callous people like Alice Purdee's Granny here. Back then, epidemics of low self-esteem were running rampant, decimating our population. Nowadays, thanks to a revamped U.S. Public School System tailored on the Every-Kid's-A-Winner Principle, the sheer number of Americans has tripled. ALICE IN MOVIELAND makes it obvious that Ms. Purdee cannot separate Fantasy from Reality, as she yo-yo's between unrealistic highs and soul-shattering lows whether she's dreaming or awake. Alice clearly suffers from being Manic-Depressive, even if scientists had not yet discovered this condition when MOVIELAND was filmed. Though we in the 21st Century have come up with loads of Wonderful Meds to treat Alice's illness, in the 1940s she would have been doomed to suffer the crushing expectations of her grandmother, with permanent psychological trauma as a result.