Virginia Davis of Walt Disney’s Alice Comedies passed away this morning. She was 90 years old and had been in failing health this past year.

In 1923, Davis was picked by Walt Disney in Kansas City to star in his proposed series of live action and animation shorts. Davis followed the Disney Studio to Hollywood to star in over a dozen Alice Comedies. She was Disney’s first movie star.

Later in her career, Davis appeared in Three On a Match (1932), with Joan Blondell, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, as well as The Harvey Girls (1946). Virginia was in the scene with Judy Garland and Ray Bolger where they introduced the Academy-Award winning song “On the Achison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”

Above, in tribute, is a particularly fun Alice from 1924, Alice and the Dog Catcher (pardon the foreign titles, and some politically incorrect humor).

(Thanks, Steve Waller)

The trend toward remaking animated shows into live action, taken to its most illogical extreme:

(Thanks, Adam Blake)

Song of the South, the one film The Walt Disney Company will not release on DVD, lives on.
There hasn’t been much to report lately on the status of Walt’s 1946 Uncle Remus classic, but I just read Jim Korkis’ outstanding “making of” article in the latest issue Hogan’s Alley (a Comic Con purchase that I just got around to reading today) and am inspired to raise the issue again. Why isn’t this film on DVD? The studio has released much more “offending material” already, without a peep from special interest groups who might object. I appreciate all the fantastic wartime material the studio has already released, and am grateful to the company for making available all the 1930s and 40s shorts, despite some dated racial stereotypes contained therein.

“Who’s Afraid of the Song of the South?” - that’s the question I’m asking, and also it happens to be the name of Korkis’ piece in the 16th edition of Hogan’s Alley. The article is an absolute must-read and, at 19 pages, is thoroughly researched and possibly the last word on the subject. Korkis documents the complete story of the project, from pre-production to latter day reissues - with all the controversy inbetween. And if this edition of Hogan’s Alley only contained Korkis’ great article it would be well worth the cover price, but there are excellent articles on Little Lulu merchandising (and animation), an interview with Popeye artist Stephan DeStefano, rare Dan DeCarlo comic strips, and a dozen other great features. Buy this today.

On a related note, Mike Van Eaton just acquired a set of Ub Iwerks notes and production boards from SotS (see storyboards below, click thumbnails to see larger images). Note the deleted sequence on the boards second row, below right. Mike isn’t selling these - but graciously allowed me to post them for our readers enjoyment.

We’ve mentioned the new Ted Thomas documentary Walt and El Grupo several times on the Brew, but hadn’t posted the trailer. Here it is:

Game site 1Up.com is reporting on an ambitious new “steampunk” Mickey Mouse game in development, codenamed Epic Mickey. Warren Spector (video game superstar behind System Shock, Deus Ex) and Disney’s Junction Point Studios are working on this secret project, in development for Nintendo’s Wii. Artists Tony Pulham, Gary Glover and Fred Gambino are said to be doing development art (click thumbnails above for larger images). For more art and info, click here.

(Thanks, Saturnome)

The folks at the John Basmajian Collection have just unearthed - and posted - a reel of rare 8mm film footage of the infamous 1941 Disney animators strike. This is new stuff and incredibly rare. They even did a nice job of adding sound effects to bring it to life. Tom Sito points out, when watching the footage, to look for these highlights:

• The first man shown speaking on a microphone is Animator Art Babbitt.

•We see a shot of Walt Disney standing in the guard shack, hat on head and white shirt open at the neck, watching the strikers outside his gate.

• The second closeup of a man using a microphone is actor John Garfield, a matinee idol of the 1940s.

• The next shot is Walt Disney going through the picketline in his fashionable Packard.

• The next person driving his car through the disapproving pickets is director Ham Luske.

• The group carrying the Guillotine is the Warner Bros unit, led by picket captain Chuck Jones- the young man to the left in the black shirt. The effigy in the Guillotine was supposed to be of Disney’s attorney Gunther Lessing.

The footage is posted here.

I had an opportunity to join selected journalists at a Hayao Miyazaki-John Lasseter press conference held yesterday (7/28) before their appearence at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences last night. I also shot some video (sorry for the shakey hand held camera work, and the low audio) and thought it was worth sharing with our readers. In this first part below Miyazaki talks about using (or not using) CG and his chances of making a film in 3-D. Lasseter discusses the process of dubbing a Miyazaki’s films. Interesting to note they’ve already dubbed Tales From Earthsea.

In the second part, Lasseter discusses 3-D animated films; Miyazaki talks about what’s happening with his son:

In the third part, John Lasseter discusses his admiration of Miyazaki’s films, his reaction to the first one he saw, Castle of Cagliostro, Miyazaki’s influence in Pixar films, and why he wants to bring Miyazaki’s films to the US:

Mickey Mouse was so popular by 1930 that every animation studio around the world tried to create unauthorized Mickey Mouse cartoons. Even live action filmmakers tried to get into the act. Check out this scene featuring actress Anny Ondra from the 1930 German talkie Die vom Rummelplatz aka “Fair People” (in Austria this feature was released as “Das Micky Maus Girl”). Check out the vintage poster here. Does anyone know if this was authorized by the Disney Studio?

(Thanks, Gary Meyer)