Alice the Piper (1924)

Alice the Piper Review

Alice the Piper is a 1924 animated short film from the Alice Comedies series. It’s a terrific short.

Alice and Julius try to take the rats out of a man’s house to get the monetary reward. This is one of the many cartoons focusing on rats or mice while also being one of numerous Pied Piper adaptations, but it’s a very good one as it finally showcased genuinely strong gags and animation that we haven’t seen since the very first entry in this series.

Yes, the premise is familiar and Alice is quite sidelined once again unfortunately, but Julius was quite memorable here and the same goes for the frustrated man and those crazy rats. The deranged rats were hilarious throughout and the highlight was that ending with the vacuum cleaner gags that were crazy in physics-defying cartoon logic and just so much fun. The animation is also quite competent here, though the rats do look oddly shaped and too catlike.

Alice the Piper is a very entertaining Alice Comedies short that is among the better ones in the series due to strong animation and some excellent gags.

My Rating – 4.1