The year is 1924 and Alice and her band of friends are putting on a "Big Wild West Show" for a bunch of the other local kids. We're not exactly sure how her stint in jail actually ended, but rest assured that closure to the LARGER issue (that Porkins framed her) does take place here. In fact, were I to title this cartoon I would call it "Alice Strikes Back!" or "Alice's Revenge!" Anyway, the show: It's pretty grandiose. Although, her friend Asperger (The Asp!) must have painted all their signs during one of his... ahem... flapping episodes... because everything is spelled all wrong and with shaky backwards writing. Alice is charging admission and one scene shows her accepting some dentures as payment. I guess kids aren't exactly rolling in cold hard cash, so this barter system makes sense. We're treated to a few fun scenes of kids selling pretty questionable concessions, as well as a few antics from all the delinquents in the crowd. Some jerk kid keeps knocking the hat off of the doofy-looking kid in the front row. It's kinda funny I suppose.
Then the show begins! First there's an overture as Alice and her friends perform a musical number on a bunch of homemade instruments. It's pretty wild and crazy (I assume. Silent cartoons make it hard to hear exactly what's going on) and one kid wearing a native american headdress is going nuts on some drums made of pots and pans. And then the first act begins as "The Asp" makes a super shifty and creepy face towards the audience.
The stage opens up to a makeshift cowboy saloon. Asp is serving up mugs of "neer beer" to two other kids dressed as cowboys. And then Alice bursts in, playing the role of sheriff, and shoots them. The crowd enjoys this immensely and THIS is where things heat up.
As the show proceeds, Porkins and his gang show up. And in an epic plot twist (to me personally) we learn that his name is NOT Porkins!!! I must say, as disappointed as I am that Disney went ahead and named this character, his official name is far more awesome than the one I gave him. His true identity, as revealed by Alice herself, is Tubby O'Brien. Tubby and his gang come rolling on in uninvited and begin causing a commotion. Tubby himself slides across the entire front row knocking its occupants onto the ground.
Tubby is clearly a local bully. We could even go so far as to assume he's the kingpin of local gang activity. Anyways, Alice is beefed that he's showed up, but nowhere near as much as the rest of her friends seem to be. Upon seeing the brute in the audience, the other players in the Wild West Show quit and take off running. Man, The Asp needs to grow some backbone. All he does in these things is run away from danger. Anyway, Alice is left to man the show all on her own which is pretty intimidating. Nervously she heads out on stage to announce that the next act will just be herself and she is immediately antagonized and heckled by Tubby himself. Though it's a silent cartoon, I imagine him sounding similar to Jabba The Hutt in Return of the Jedi when he laughs
"Silly Jedi! Silly Jedi!" Starting to panic, Alice decides to tell a story to entertain everyone.
This is when we're taken into the cartoon world! It's sort of tragic that this toon breaks the formula of Alice actually slipping into a coma to visit her cartoon fantasy world, but the sheer insanity that follows from here on out makes up for it in a big way. Our story begins in what is described as "the wild n' woolly west." (don't get too excited. There are no woolly mammoths in this picture, to my chagrin). BUT we open on an intense high octane chase sequence.
A band of Native Americans are chasing a wagon while vaulting an endless assault of arrows at it. On board the wagon is a mustached coach-master and Alice herself laying low in the roof. The driver doesn't last long though, after losing much of his outfit he takes an arrow to the rib cage and falls off to his demise. Meanwhile Alice is on the roof of the wagon as arrows whiz past her face. She begins grabbing some of the crates and other cargo on board and throwing it down at the attackers. While she manages to take out a minimal amount of her assailants, she ends up falling off of the wagon and having to take on the attackers herself with her bare fists. And it works. She beats up a horse AND an Indian Brave.
We're taken back to the reality of the Wild West Show and see that her story isn't going over very well. Now not only is Tubby accosting her, but the entire audience seems riled up and angry at her. Thinking quickly, she reboots the story to a new setting and we are thrust back into the cartoon world.
The new story begins in an old west saloon. A hive of villainy, most of the occupants seem to be outlaws or vagrants. In fact, a band is playing inside and a man who is CLEARLY a hobo is their accordion player. On the other side of the room Wild Bill "Hiccup" is eyeing a safe suspiciously. The safe is made by "The Unsafe Safe Co." So it doesn't take a genius to tell that he sees this as an easy target for robbery. And really, he should. I don't understand why in a saloon filled with untrustworthies you would ever think you should leave all your riches in an unguarded safe in the middle of the room.
Well, it seems that Hiccup is biding his time because also present in the saloon is Sheriff Alice. She's a tough customer herself, as she recently managed to beat up a horse and a Native American Warrior. Her toughness is further proven by the fact that she busts out a cigar and begins wildly puffing away at it. Again, I am sad that things like this never happened in the cartoons of MY childhood. You'd never see a six year old girl smoke a stogie on tv these days... it's quite a sight.
Also present in the saloon is that stupid Dog that's been in all these cartoons. He has a flea on his pelt which he plucks off and then shoots with a revolver. If we needed anymore proof that this version of the West is in fact wild AND woolly, we'd be fools. These are clearly not people to mess with.
In the meantime, the hobo band is serenading the patrons with the song Sweet Adeline (a song I am unfamiliar with, and since the cartoon is silent I was listening to Reckless by Crystal Castles during the scene anyway- a side note, this is traditionally what I listen to at least ONCE when watching silent films) and apparently not singing it very well. The patrons begin throwing bottles and shouting for the band to be thrown out. Sheriff Alice and the Dog also hate the music, so they don't do anything to stop the bar fight and allow the Hobos to take a beating. Alice also decides she no longer wants her stinky cigar and chucks it into the nearest spittoon. When the cigar plops in is causes a big wave of old saliva and tobacco to splash out all over the Dog. While a someone with a weaker constitution would vomit and then die from something so disgusting, this wild west gritty woolly Dog merely wipes it off. All I have to say is, Tough. Freaking. Costumer.
In the commotion Hiccup makes his move and begins trying to chisel the safe open. As any brain dead infant chimpanzee could probably tell you, that is a horrible way to break into a safe. Thinking quickly, Hiccup decides to take a far more reasonable rout and pulls out a bomb to blow the safe up. BUT Alice has spotted him by now and without even a warning she produces a few revolvers and a gun fight breaks out. Bullets fill the air of the saloon and one actually hits the lamp and knocks the light out. By the time Alice has re lit the candles, Hiccup is gone. It is also revealed that in the chaos Alice and Hiccup literally killed all of the patrons in the crossfire. Blood is splattered all over the walls and Alice merely snaps her fingers in disappointment and says "Darn!" In a major upset, the Dog survived the gunfight too by raking cover inside of the spittoon. The duo quickly begin to follow Hiccup's trail to recover the safe (even though the OWNER of the safe is presumably dead at this point).
Hiccup is riding away with the safe on the back of a mule while Alice closes the gap between them in an old timey automobile. The chase goes on for a long time while Alice shoots at him and misses every single time. In the end, Hiccup tries riding up a steep ninety degree incline to escape. While he almost succeeds, right at the top his mule slips out from under him falling to it's death at the bottom of the ravine. Hiccup himself is slipping too, holding onto the safe for dear life (which is stable on level ground at this point). However, he's not strong enough and ends up falling down to his own death as well. Alice and the Dog recover the safe and drive away with it, happy with their victory, and also probably happy that they can now keep the safe for themselves since it's owner was killed by her careless crime fighting.
Alice's story ends and we're again at the Wild West Show. While I was thoroughly entertained watching the over the top grit-fest unfold, apparently the others in the audience were NOT. They are all booing her and Tubby begins leading them to pelt her with old rotten vegetables and fruits and so forth. She takes a heavy beating and the boys in the audience end up running away. For a moment I thought once again Tubby had bested our heroine, but THIS Alice-Adventure has one final twist in its plot.
As it turns out, Sheriff Alice's gritty thuggish attitude WAS actually based in reality. Alice takes off after Tubby, brandishing what appears to be a hockey stick. His legs are too stubby and his body is too tubby to get away (this leads me to wonder if his parents naming him Tubby actually might have caused him to become so fat later in life...). Alice pounces on him, throws her weapon to the side, and begins literally beating him to a bloody pulp. And we get to SEE all of the blows being dealt. Now, I really prefer my protagonists to be generally good and likable people. Revenge isn't something I can always get behind and support... but there's just something endearing about this. Our hero has nothing left to lose, she's been pushed to the limits, she was framed by this oaf earlier, and now she's out for blood. It's awesome. It's absurdism at its finest. It's epic.
In the end Tubby gets up and is bleeding and bruised (and seems to have even lost some teeth?), his face ripped to shreds, and he his positively balling in agony. But Alice doesn't even let up then. She strikes forward, threatening further abuse if he doesn't get moving NOW. Finally he turns and runs away, and Alice looks pretty pleased with herself. And that's how it ends.
Again... I don't know... I like this cartoon. I don't approve of teaching children to beat up other children and take up vigilantism or anything. But this one is just wildly (and woolly-ly?) entertaining. It's different from the past adventures, and for once the live action element is actually on par with the cartoon one. And it's just off the wall crazy which is what I love the most about the Alice Comedies. In contemporary days Disney goes through great strains to make sure they provide wholesome entertainment. I remember when Princess and the Frog came out I read a few articles about everything they did to make sure it wouldn't offend the African American community and all the committees they hired and money they spent. I remember when Curse of the Black Pearl came out hearing all the flack from parents who were upset to see the company producing PG-13 action films. I remember all the upset over Lilo and Stitch's darker view on life (and I actually agree with that one but we'll talk about that when/if I get there). There's something pretty amusing and fun about these days of Disney BEFORE censors objected to anything and everything.
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