Alice the Whaler (1927) User Reviews

Whaling in the 1920s? Not really.

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 29 August 2016]

To me it never felt that this was the core idea that this film was about. "Alice the Whaler" is a six-minute short film from 1927, so it will have its 90th anniversary next year. The title already gives away that this is an Alice short film from Walt Disney and he made really many of these. This one here stars Lois Hardwick (first wife of Donald Sutherland) as the title character, but again I must say I never really felt as if this one here was about Alice. I rather thought that it was all about the animals in here. All kinds. The animation is bearable for the 1920s, but the story is so forgettable that I would almost say it is non-existent. Still it is fine all these Alice films got made as they helped Disney on his path to greatness I guess. Nonethe less I give this one a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

Not very good.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 13 August 2012]

This is one of the last Alice comedies from Walt Disney. After making about 50 of these live action/cartoon films, Walt and his animators soon switched to making Mickey Mouse cartoons. Considering the poor quality of this film, it was about time to make a change. While I love the earlier Alice films this one just isn't very entertaining.

Lois Hardwick stars as Alice--one of several kids who played this title role. She and her friends, the animals, are aboard a whaling ship. Much of the time, the film has little to do with whales and consists of some sadistic adventures of a Mickey Mouse-like creature as he tortures animals. Later, they see whales and the film VERY abruptly ends. Could the ending have vanished over the years or was it meant to end this way, I have no idea. All I know is that it really isn't very funny and left me cold.

A precursor to "Steamboat Willie"

[Cristian-3 · 12 July 1999]

Lois Hardwick was a very expressive, vivid Alice. It is only too bad that when she was brought on board (no pun intended) Walt had begun to lose interest in his Alice Comedies, and these weren't as full of hybrid (live action and animation together) segments as the earlier efforts. Lois is in few shots here, but one can only wonder how great these last Alice Comedies would've been if they had featured her in as many hybrid segments as before. Lois appears against a generic background for the most part, generally laughing by herself. Surprisingly, there's very little of Julius the cat as well in this cartoon. I could almost clock him in for a total of 5 seconds. Not too surprisingly, on the other hand, is that the main character in this movie is a nameless mouse. Foreshadowing. Anyway, this mouse has rather long ears, almost like a bunny. At one point he uses his ears as wings to fly after a seagull. This would be a character in between Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse. The quality of the animation supercedes all previous Alice efforts. Characters don't persistently change colours and shadings and frames don't skip. This was similar to Steamboat Willie in quality. One of the scenes involving the mouse and some spuds was reworked into that later film as a Mickey Mouse routine. My only other complaint asides from the under-using of Lois Hardwick was the lack of a proper ending.

Anyone who watches STAR TREK knows that . . .

[pixrox1 · 7/10 · 28 October 2021]

. . . whaling is bad. Film buffs learned this lesson from Mr. Peck in MOBY DICK. Nefarious nations such as the Land of the Rising Sun and the ice hut clans survive on a pernicious all- or mostly-blubber diet. Each of these miscreants is forgetting the First Law of the Cosmos: Do NOT eat anything smarter than yourself! No proper, authentic human being would style themselves as a whale killer. A title such as ALICE THE WHALER is equivalent to proclaiming ALICE THE PET SWIPER or ALICE THE GERM SPREADER. Who would watch such filth?

Alice the Whaler

[Michael_Elliott · 21 July 2015]

Alice the Whaler (1927)

** (out of 4)

A rather bland entry in the series has Alice on board a ship where in the kitchen a large cat and a small mouse are preparing dinner. Soon the boat goes after a whale. If this plot description sounds pretty bad then you'll have to blame Disney himself because this is all that happens. This entry in the series runs shorter than the rest, which tells me that Mr. Disney might have just been out of ideas and throwing whatever he could in order to get something in the theater. This film contains some nice animation but the story itself is just plain bad and there's just nothing that happens. I'm not sure who this short was being aimed for but I doubt too many kids liked seeing the whale harpooned.