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| Alice in Wonderland | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Norman Z. McLeod |
| Screenplay by | |
| Based on | Alice's Adventures in Wonderland andThrough the Looking-Glass byLewis Carroll |
| Produced by | Louis D. Lighton(uncredited) |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | |
| Edited by | Ellsworth Hoagland(uncredited) |
| Music by | Dimitri Tiomkin |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 77 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Alice in Wonderland is a 1933 Americanpre-Codefantasy film adapted from the novels byLewis Carroll. The film was produced byParamount Pictures, featuring anall-star cast. It is alllive action, except for theWalrus and The Carpenter sequence, which was animated byHarman-Ising Studio. The film was seen byWalt Disney, and inspired him to createhis company's 1951 animated adaptation.[1]
Stars includeW. C. Fields asHumpty Dumpty,Edna May Oliver as theRed Queen,Cary Grant as theMock Turtle,Gary Cooper asThe White Knight,Edward Everett Horton asThe Hatter,Charles Ruggles asThe March Hare,Richard Arlen as theCheshire Cat,Baby LeRoy asThe Joker, andCharlotte Henry in her first leading role asAlice.
This adaptation was directed byNorman Z. McLeod from a screenplay byJoseph L. Mankiewicz andWilliam Cameron Menzies, based onLewis Carroll's booksAlice in Wonderland (1865) andAlice Through the Looking-Glass (1871). It also drew heavily fromEva Le Gallienne andFlorida Friebus's then-recent stage adaptation.
When Paramount previewed the film in 1933, the original running time was 90 minutes. By the time it was shown to the press, it was truncated to 77 minutes. Many reviews, including the savage one inVariety, made a point of how long it seemed at an hour-and-a-quarter. Though being released at this shorter time, it is often mistakenly reported thatUniversal Pictures edited it when it bought the television rights in the late 1950s.[2] Universal released the film onDVD on March 2, 2010, as the firsthome video release.
It is the only major live-action Hollywood theatrical production to adapt the originalAlice stories. The next major live-action Hollywood production to do so is atwo-part adaptation for television in 1985, and the second major live-action Hollywood production for movie theaters to use the titleAlice in Wonderland was made byTim Burton forDisney in 2010 as a sequel to the original story.
Alice and Dinah live peacefully in their home, until chasing a White Rabbit into a hole. Falling in, Alice is transported to various doors. She drinks a bottle that reads "Drink Me, Not Poison", which makes her grow big. Her tears flood the room while weeping. She eats a cookie and turns tiny. Swimming in her tears, she meets a couple of odd men named Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. She encounters a tea party, where the Mad Hatter and March Hare live. She meets the Cheshire Cat, then she meets Humpty Dumpty, who tells her what an unbirthday is. She leaves and meets a caterpillar and changes size again. Alice returns to her normal size and runs away from the caterpillar and meets the Queen of Hearts. They play croquet by grabbing a flamingo by the neck. Alice is welcomed to a castle, realizing that she is Queen or Princess of the land. The people of Wonderland start to go crazy and gang up on Alice by running towards her. Then, Alice gets choked by the Queen but wakes up in the drawing room, relieved that it was only a dream.
Its status as abox office bomb cast doubt on whether a live-action fantasy with strange-looking characters could be successfully presented on the screen, untilMGM'sThe Wizard of Oz (1939).[citation needed] It was banned inChina under a category of "superstitious films" for its "strangeness" and unscientific elements.[3]
Variety magazine said that the timeless classic book is too surrealistic and adult-oriented to have a good film adaptation. It said the film is "vividly realized" with genuine humor and a satisfying literary treatment, and the cast is "a stunning aggregation of screen names", but the experience is a non-sequitur "volume of separate four-line gags".[4]
