Studio: Walt Disney Studio, for Winkler Pictures
Distributor: Winkler Pictures (M. J. Winkler)
Short Synopsis
Alice and Julius the cat enter a balloon race against a field of cartoon rivals, chief among them the villainous Pete, who means to win by any means. The race is the whole film: the balloons rise, Pete sabotages the competition, Julius and Alice fight back with the gas, the sandbags and the ropes, and the sky becomes an arena for the kind of aerial slapstick the series favoured, with falls, collisions and improbable recoveries. Julius's tail, detachable and prehensile, is as usual the key piece of equipment. The film survives and was released on the Walt Disney Treasures Oswald set, with a sound reissue in December 1930; the account above follows the surviving print's outline rather than a detailed shot list.
Why It Matters
- The balloon race gave the animators height, wind and gravity to play with, and the sequence shows how far their sense of staging had developed: the action is read clearly in long shot, and the gags build toward a finish rather than piling up. Pete, two films into his career, is already the series' best villain.
- Balloon Race belongs to the start of 1926, when Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising had arrived from Kansas City, the staff was at full strength and the Alice films were at their most fluent, a year before the series was dropped for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. It is a representative film from the studio's first mature period.
Notes and Trivia
- A sound version was released on 15 December 1930.
- The film is one of several Alice Comedies included on the Oswald Walt Disney Treasures set as bonus material.
- See also: Alice Solves the Puzzle (1925), Alice Rattled by Rats (1925).