In his lifetime Walt Disney garnered something like 700 awards, degrees and citations from around the world for the work of his pioneering film studios. All, including a clutch of Oscars, were assumed by the big man himself. Everyone, you see, can name Disney when it comes to Snow White or Bambi or The Jungle Book, but whoever remembers the talent that slaved for years over these intricate projects? You won't find them properly credited on the films themselves, and Uncle Walt liked it that way.

Marc Eliot's book - more Walt Disney: What A Bastard - is an effective hatchet job on one of Hollywood's biggest, oddest names. He professes admiration for the work in his introduction, then spends the next 300 or so pages demolishing the man. When he's finished even Mickey Mouse would disown his father.

And there is a case in point. The most famous cartoon character in the world was born of a conflict over the ill-remembered Oswald, a rabbit stolen from Disney by money men. In retaliation, Disney birthed, marketed and made a superstar of that damn mouse, but effectively stole the idea himself from soon-to-be-erstwhile friend, Ub Iwerks. Even the Disney archives now (half) credit the fact, particularly since here was a man who, by consensus, could hardly draw for toffee. (Even his flowing signature came from the art department.)

Bad enough in itself possibly, if hardly the end of the world. But such dodges in the business of cartoonry are as nothing to the real meat of Eliot's investigations. Disney spent his life in confusion, unsure whether or not he was who he said, or was, in point of fact, an adopted child whose roots lay in Spain. It haunted the man all his life, and lead directly to his involvement as informer to the FBI, in exchange for J Edgar Hoover's help in tracing his real origins. That, and his almost pathological hatred of Communism.

Disney was just about as friendly a witness as ever testified for McCarthy and the HUAC, revenging himself on the leaders of a legitimate strike at his studios for official union recognition. (Dumbo, don't forget, is a scab picture.) And, darker still, he is known to have attended meetings of the American Nazi Party, even if, as Eliot suggests, it was largely about getting his productions into Nazi occupied countries in the period before the war.

The man's private life was no less curious. His relationship with his almost-agoraphobic wife Lillian was strained at best, he living away from home at the studio and, later, his beloved theme park. He was a compulsive smoker, heavy drinker, and suffered from periodic nervous complaints that would see his hair fail out and compulsive hand-washing. Disney was by this time obsessed with his own mortality.

Misogynist, homophobe, anti-Semite, sexual inadequate, Eliot is merciless, even if he fails to get the bottom of extraordinary (and still enforced) rules like the ban on facial hair at the theme parks. (Disney himself sported a life-long moustache.) His attempts to tie in the man and the films Disney supervised are well-intentioned if a little strained, and the book is best when simply venting its spleen. Then it's a compulsive, horrifying, educational text. The only disappointment is finding out that, contrary to popular myth, Uncle Walt isn't still held on ice somewhere. Still, as Disney discovered, you can't have everything.