Mickey's Gala Premier

IN AN ACTION that could be described as "one hand washing the other", Walt Disney saw the opportunity to both flatter the denizens of the Movie Colony; while at the same, time make use and exploit their familiarity with the public in producing a Mickey cartoon. The very nature of the short left very little need for any extensive plot or, as we reviewers say, a scenario.

AS ONE WOULD most likely expect, MICKEY'S GALA PREMIER is set in Los Angeles, Hollywood, California. Also, being a White-Tie affair of a Movie premier, the logical venue would be Grauman's Chinese Theatre. It was.

IT OPENS WITH rows of admiring fans crowding around and pushing to get a glimpse of the many stars in attendance. One after another, chauffeur driven limousines pull up and leave; first depositing their celebrity cargo on the red carpet. The Theatre is well represented in its own caricature, as batteries of searchlights sweep the skies.

THE FIFTY OR so movie stars & other Hollywood big-wigs present us with a most distinguished of an audience for the premiering movie in question. The characters present the animation team with a plethora of natural gags that flow almost naturally over the duration of the cartoon's eight or so minutes.

EVVRERY BIT, BE it sight-gag or verbal, seems to have been tailored to the star being lampooned. Many of the characters are limited to just appearing; which is more than enough for their "contribution" to the cartoon.

UNLIKE JUST ABOUT any other animated short, MICKEY'S GALA PREMIER has, of necessity, a "Cartoon within a Cartoon"; a storyline device that is often used in live action feature films that deal with the Film Capitol and its people. This seems to be a very standard Mickey & Minnie vs. Dirty Pete and employs a succession of standard sort of gags, with the mouse winning out in the end.

WE DON'T BELIEVE that this is an excerpt from another cartoon as that would be contrary to Disney's methods of doing things. The "cartoon" also seems to be too tightly constructed to a mere 2 or 3 minutes; without appearing to have been abridged.

THIS TITLE IS worth a screening or two, if only for the purpose of viewing and identifying the Hollywood stars being spoofed.

THERE IS SORT of a twist in the conclusion that makes all of the happenings and assemblage of talent to be rendered more believable; as if an animated cartoon short is required to be realistic!

I love this as much as Warner Bros. 1941 "Hollywood Steps Out". The only error I see in the listing of celebrities is the audience scene after 3:15 into the cartoon. In the front left, I'd swear that's Richard Dix and NOT Chester Morris as so many have claimed.

Mickey's Gala Premier (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Simple Disney short has all of Hollywood shutting down so that the major stars can show up at Grauman's Chinese Theater to see Mickey Mouse's latest movie. Mickey arrives with Minnie and Pluto but the real stars include Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Laurel and Hardy, Edward G. Robinson, Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, Joan Crawford, Joe E. Brown, Chaplin, Keaton, Mae West, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Fredric March and countless others. This isn't the greatest written cartoon ever made but the real reason to watch is for the A-list talent from Hollywood. Laurel and Hardy probably get the most screen time but the Marx Bros. get a few good jokes in as well. The stuff dealing with Greta Garbo coming onto Mickey was pretty funny but the other highlight is the twist that follows. The short features Lugosi as Dracula and Karloff as the Frankenstein monster but they really don't play too close to detail. The same is true for March who appears with them as Mr. Hyde but he looks more like a werewolf than anything else.

"Mickey's Gala Premiere" is an above-average Mickey Mouse cartoon from Disney's best period. The premise is simple: Mickey Mouse produces a movie, and all the biggest stars in Hollywood (1933 vintage) show up for the premiere.

Unfortunately, most modern viewers will be unable to identify some or all of the big stars who appear (in cartoon form) in this cartoon. The caricatures are quite cruel: Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler are drawn to look like a couple of gross hippopotami. Greta Garbo is drawn with exaggerated feet. (During Garbo's stardom, she was frequently the butt of jokes about her allegedly large feet ... actually, her feet were quite normal, but she had an ungainly gait that made them seem larger.)

Even viewers who recognise all the film stars in this cartoon might still be baffled by some of the references. Why are Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante shown handcuffed together? Answer: this is a reference to one scene in 'What! No Beer?' ... a film that was released just as "Mickey's Gala Premiere" went into production.

From a British standpoint, the most notable aspect of "Mickey's Gala Premiere" is its unique role in the history of television. Before World War Two, television reception in Britain was only available in London and the Home Provinces, from a transmitter at Alexandra Palace. On the first day of September 1939, executives at 'Ally Pally' decided to shut down tv transmission for the duration of the war, so that the transmitters could not be used as signal beacons by German bombers. At the precise instant when the plug was pulled, London audiences were watching "Mickey's Gala Premiere" on television ... and the screens went blank about halfway through the cartoon. After the war, when the time came to resume tv transmission, a BBC executive jokingly suggested that transmission should begin with the same Mickey Mouse cartoon ... starting in mid-film, at the precise spot where it left off six years earlier.

Cooler heads prevailed, and on 7 June 1946, the Earl of Listowel threw the switch to resume British tv transmission ... starting with "Mickey's Gala Premiere" shown from its *beginning*. The cartoon was followed with performances from ballerina Margot Fonteyn, harpist John Cockerill and the New Zealand-born cartoonist David Low whose political cartoons had done so much to maintain wartime morale.

I'll rate "Mickey's Gala Premiere" 7 points out of 10, but at least one point is for this cartoon's unique role in the history of British television.

This is an enjoyable black and white Mickey Mouse short in which Mickey is the guest of honor at the premiere of his latest film. Most of this short's humor relies on cartoon versions of many famous faces from when this film was made. I'm sure many of today's viewers would have a difficult time recognizing all of them. Some of them are kind of bland but others are very funny, the Joe E. Brown character is especially funny. The movie within the movie has it's share of funny moments.