A Walt Disney MICKEY MOUSE Cartoon.
ALPINE CLIMBERS Mickey & Donald get themselves into trouble by picking edelweiss & swiping eagle's eggs.
This is a very funny little film, which provides fine scope for Donald to vent his famous temper. Incongruously, Pluto is also brought along, but has a humorous inebriated scene with a friendly St. Bernard. Mickey has some good moments, but plays definite second fiddle to Donald. They are voiced by Walt Disney & Clarence Nash, respectively.
The snowy-white edelweiss, which cheers Donald's heart, is a woolly-leafed herb (Leontopodium alpinum) which grows in the higher regions of Europe & Asia. It is much beloved by the peoples of the Alps and is the floral emblem of Switzerland. During World War Two, it served as the secret symbol of the Austrian Underground which fought against the Nazis.
Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.
