SpuffyWeb
Sadly Over-hyped
MonsterPerfect
Good idea lost in the noise
Breakinger
A Brilliant Conflict
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Lee Eisenberg
In the 21st century, we know Disney as the media conglomerate that makes "family" cartoons. But the man for whom the studio is named had to start somewhere. Walt Disney got his start with Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1921 he released "Newman Laugh-O-Gram", which looked like drawings of advertisements. But his first "real" cartoon was 1922's "Little Red Riding Hood". Despite the poster, it doesn't follow the story that closely. It starts with Little Red's mother making donuts, and then the wolf is actually a lecherous human who goes after Little Red (grandma's house is shown shaking, so he probably tries to rape her, but we don't see anything). I understand that the cat featured in this cartoon is named Julius, and he became Walt Disney's first recurring character. I haven't seen most of Disney's early works, so I can't comment on that.Laugh-O-Gram Studio closed not long after this due to lack of funds. Walt Disney moved to southern California, and the rest is history. Other employees of Laugh-O-Gram Studios were Ub Iwerks and Friz Freleng.A really entertaining version of the story is the 1977 Soviet movie "About Little Red Riding Hood" ("Pro Krasnuyu Shapochku" in Russian). It's one of the wackiest movies that I've ever seen.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Little Red Riding Hood" is a 6-minute black-and-white silent cartoon from 1922, so it will have its 95th anniversary next year. It is a very early career effort from Walt Disney and his lack of experience is the only thing I can somewhat think of to justify how bad this little film is. or I could say "how inaccurate". If I had not seen the title, I would not have considered this as a "Red Riding Hood" version at all. I am pretty sure Perrault would not have enjoyed this one. It was as bizarre and off the mark as Disney's other early films that are based on fairy tales (suchas Brothers Grimm for example). This one here is certainly one of Disney's worst, but hey at least he got considerably better in later years. Don't watch.
Michael_Elliott
Little Red Riding Hood (1922)** (out of 4) Entertainment wise, this first film from Walt Disney really isn't that good. There are a few interesting things here and there but there's no question that the legend would go onto much better things. That doesn't mean the film isn't historically important because, as I said, this was Disney's first movie and it was lost for decades until a print finally turned up. The story is pretty simple but don't expect anything like the classic fairy tale. Basically just a few pieces from that are borrowed for this film, which has a grandma making donuts when the little girl goes out to play and gets into some trouble. Again, entertainment wise there's really not too much here as Disney was clearly just learning his touch. The highlight of the film was seeing how the donuts were being made but even this is eventually ruined by it lasting way too long. Still, history and film buffs will still want to check this one out.
MartinHafer
According to IMDb, this is the first cartoon made by Walt Disney. Also, until recently, it was thought to be lost.Although the title says "Little Red Riding Hood", the story seems to have very little to do with the classic Perrault fairy tale. Aside from mentioning a few things from the original story, it's mostly a lot of silly nonsense and some bits are WAY overlong (such as the doughnut bit). Now compared to other cartoons of the day, it's about average, but just a short time later, Disney's cartoons improved dramatically--such as "Cinderella" which came out just after "Little Red Riding Hood". And, if you do see one, you should also see the other so you can see the many similarities--such as the characters and style. Overall, a cartoon that hasn't aged tremendously well but it's worth a look for Disneyphiles.
