Madame Alexander

Anyone with even a vague knowledge of the doll world recognizes the name of "Madame Alexander." The daughter of Russian immigrants, she began selling cloth dolls in America during WWI when German dolls became unavailable and, by 1928, was the sole proprietor of the business started by her and her sister. Perhaps her biggest coup was recognizing the importance of product licensing, and after landing a deal with Walt Disney to produce licensed dolls for the release of Disney's short "The Three Little Pigs," the rest, as they say, was history. By 1938, Madame Alexander dolls were the third-highest selling of the fifty doll manufacturers in New York. In this engaging documentary, viewers will follow Madame Alexander's career throughout the '40s and '50s and beyond, as she created splash after splash in the doll world by introducing celebrity dolls and dolls reflecting popular culture, such as the Princess Elizabeth doll, an elaborate set of Coronation figures to represent Queen Elizabeth's accession (see The Coronation Story in VL-11/93), several renditions of Scarlett O'Hara (see Scarlet Dolls in VL-10/92), and a fashion doll named "Cissy" (see review of Cissy on Video Librarian Online, www.videolibrarian.com) which predated Barbie as the girl with (anatomically) everything. While she was indisputably the "Queen of the Modern Doll World" at her death in 1990, the script does occasionally wax purple (perhaps since it was produced in conjunction with the Madame Alexander Doll Club). Still, there's no arguing the fact that she was a gifted entrepreneur in a time when few women were able to attain such a role. Sure to be much enjoyed by avid doll collectors, this is highly recommended. Aud: P. (R. Reagan)