User Reviews

As short subjects go, ALICE IN MOVIELAND is easy to take. After all, who doesn't mind gazing at JOAN LESLIE at her prettiest, showing us all the wholesome charm that did indeed make her a movie star in the '40s under contract to Warner Bros.

But unfortunately, the script (by no less than Ed Sullivan) is a cluster of clichés--you know, the one about the kid who dreams of making it big in Hollywood and dreams about becoming the toast of the town. Leslie, enroute to Hollywood via train, falls asleep and dreams that she has this great impact on filmland after a few false starts. Her dream is all wrapped up in tinsel but is mostly a series of phony myths about Hollywood stardom for young girls.

You can glimpse a few Warner contract players throughout--including David BRUCE, CRAIG STEVENS, ALEXIS SMITH, JANE WYMAN, RONALD REAGAN, FRANK FAYLEN and ALAN HALE. But it's strictly a showcase for Joan Leslie, who plays the part of a naive girl seeking stardom. Her singing voice is obviously dubbed and her dancing is no great shakes.

In real life, Leslie had to work hard to gain stardom, appearing in numerous films in bit parts before any big breaks came her way. But the story is reminiscent of how ANN SHERIDAN got her start--by entering a beauty contest that brought her to the attention of Warner Bros.

This 21 minute short, directed by Jean Negulesco and photographed by Ted McCord, is a fun way to look at the way mythical film stardom was treated for the sake of naive movie fans back in the early '40s.

Joan Leslie wins a screen test, but loses the audition. She sticks it out thanks to the words of Nana Bryant.

Miss Leslie was 15 when this short subject came out, but was already in her fourth year of working in the movies. Her career was about to take off, with featured roles for the next couple,of years, although her stardom would begin to fade towards the end of the decade. For the moment, she was a hopeful ingenue, doing imitations of Zasu Pitts and Katherine Hepburn, and dreaming this will be the start of something big. It's a sort of anti-A STAR IS BORN, with Miss Leslie somehow gifted with a singing range wider than Deanna Durbin.

David Lynch's Mulholland Drive is basically a remake of this film. A more darker, bizarre, and surreal remake, for sure.

As for this film, it's a decent story. So many people think just because a movie is in black and white and portrays reasonable people, it must be hokey. But those people tend to aspire to style over substance.

A tale as old as time...

Alice in Movieland (1940)

*** (out of 4)

Two-reeler from Warner about a small town girl (Joan Leslie) who arrives in Hollywood hoping to become a star but she suffers one disaster after another. When she finally gets a bit part in a film she lets her dreams go too far and this here leads to another embarrassment. This is an interesting little short for a number of reasons but the biggest is because of how painful and rather embarrassing it treats the main character. A lot of shorts were made about young girls coming to Hollywood but this one here is rather painful to watch because Leslie is so good in her role that we really start to care for it and it's rather sad seeing some of the jokes pulled on her. The film manages to have some nice backbone to it and it really has some great drama. Leslie is terrific in her role as the dreamy kid and we even get Clarence Muse as a train porter who gives her some sound advice. Alan Hale, Ronald Reagan, Craig Stevens, Alexis Smith and Jane Wyman appear in a brief scene at a club where Leslie is about to act. It's obvious the stars were filmed at other times and just edited into this film but it's still nice seeing them. Fans of older movies will certainly want to check this one out as there's a lot more soul and heart than you'd normally see in a film like this.

Not exactly a bunch of A listers for this airbrushed show biz dream that TCM annoyingly keeps using as hamburger helper to fill out half hour gaps in their schedule. Let's see, you've got Alexis Smith, hubby Craig Stevens, Alan Hale, and the Reagans looking like they're already contemplating divorce. This thing feels more like a nightmare episode of the Ed Sullivan show and bears about as much resemblance to Mulholland Drive as does Lincoln Blvd.

I never complain seeing the wholesomely-beautiful Joan Leslie, even if its just a 21-minute "short" like this one. She looked absolutely spectacular, too, in this 1940 film.

Here, Joan plays "Alice Purdee," the winner of a local beauty contest for girls, the top prize being a chance "for fame in Hollywood!" We go along with her, seeing her trials and tribulations in attempting to become a movie star.

For classic movie fans, this is terrific. Not only do we see glimpses of Hollywood (the town) circa 1940 but quick glances at couples' Alexis Smith and Craig Stevens, Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyatt, and Alan Hale. All are in the audience (supposedly) watching "Alice" make her talent show debut. Frank Faylen, by the way, plays the emcee of the talent show.

This whole thing was well-done, with some wonderful close-up photography and beautifully directed by Jean Negulesco, who went on to direct some pretty famous movies. So far, it is the best short I've seen, although it does get a bit corny the last 5-6 minutes....but a nice kind of corny.

This short film was part of the "Warner Night At the Movies" feature on "Sea Hawk" DVD. I guess they felt that appropriate since one of the first lines of this feature was, "....and don't you fall for one of those movie stars like Errol Flynn!"

I liked this short even though some may find it a bit too sappy and old fashioned. However, I like it because it's a wonderful eye into the idea of Hollywood from 1940--not the real city, but the way it was viewed by the wide-eyed public and how Hollywood packaged itself. Joan Leslie stars as "Alice Purdee"--a country girl who wins a local contest whose reward is a Hollywood screen test. In so many ways, this short is like a condensed version of A STAR IS BORN minus the Norman Main character. I find the whole thing very charming, as would anyone who is a fan of Hollywood's Golden Age. My bet is that newer, younger audiences will probably find it all a bit silly and over-done, but considering what the film was intended to portray, the "schmaltziness" is actually a big plus--it helps you to understand the dreams of thousands, if not millions of girls across the nation.

I was not expecting this. I just saw this short movie which I had no idea it existed. It was part of the extras in the fantastic Errol Flynn , Sea Hawke, I have no idea why and I was totally blown away by Alice in Movieland.

This is actually MULHOLAND DRIVE but made in 1940 !!!

David Lynch must have seen this one for sure because his Mulholand Drive movie is this Alice in Movieland movie in style and soul. Not only the structure is the same when it comes to the starlet story/dream of becoming an Hollywood star but even the pacing and the editing is exactly done in the same style and even uses the same musical interactions to tell the story when it comes to the central character.

We can even feel the more esoteric touch in the ending as visually it becomes kind of subjective and it can even be interpreted to end in the same way David Lynch's movie did when it comes to the main character journey.

It's all here, minus the really dark and haunted David Lynch tone of course. But there's even the character of the old star to give advice to the main one.

Seeing this movie is a really weird experience. It's not a dark story at first glance , but there's some 'supernatural" undertones in there ( the train guy with his lucky rabbit paw that somehow feels more like a whimsical supernatural addition than it should be) , that in the end make this movie even more similar to David Lynch's "version(?!)".

The fact that David Lynch never mentioned this Alice In Movieland on any of the interviews I've seen and I'm a big fan of MULHOLAND DRIVE now made the whole experience of discovering this really obscure short movie from 1940 a really weird "lynchian" experience in itself.

The movies are way to similar in several key moments for this to be just a giant coincidence caused by a similar idea for a story. It's really weird. Some of the shots and in particularly the editing can even be put side by side.

Did Lynch stole this obscure short movie and turn it into his own haunted version? MULHOLAND DRIVE just became even more fascinating to me now that I found ALICE IN MOVIELAND. This movie should have been an extra for the MULHOLAND Drive Blu-ray edition.

ALICE IN MOVIELAND it's fascinating , really well made, the story and editing is great and the protagonist is fantastic. No lesbian scenes though. 😁

Awesome short movie and totally mandatory if you are a fan of Lynch's MULHOLAND DRIVE , that's for sure.