Alice in Wonderland (1951)

This article was copied (instead of imported) from the now-deleted Greatest Movies Wiki.

Alice in Wonderland (1951)
"Most everyone's mad here."
Genre: Adventure Animation Family Fantasy Musical Directed by: Clyde Geronimi Wilfred Jackson Hamilton Luske Written by: Milt Banta Del Connell William Cottrell Joe Grant Winston Hibler Dick Huemer Dick Kelsey Tom Oreb Bill Peet Erdman Penner Joe Rinaldi Ted Sears John Walbridge Starring: Kathryn Beaumont Ed Wynn Richard Haydn Sterling Holloway Jerry Colonna Verna Felton J. Pat O'Malley Bill Thompson Heather Angel Distributed by: RKO Radio Pictures Release date: July 26, 1951 (London premiere) July 28, 1951 (New York City premiere) Runtime: 75 miunutes Country: United States

Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated musical adventure fantasy-comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions (originally released by RKO Radio Pictures).

It was based on the Alice books by Lewis Carroll. The 13th release of Disney's animated features, the film premiered in London on July 26, 1951, and in New York City on July 28, 1951.

Plot

Lewis Carroll's beloved fantasy tale is brought to life in this Disney animated classic. When Alice (Kathryn Beaumont), a restless young British girl, falls down a rabbit hole, she enters a magical world. There she encounters an odd assortment of characters, including the grinning Cheshire Cat (Sterling Holloway) and the goofy Mad Hatter (Ed Wynn). When Alice ends up in the court of the tyrannical Queen of Hearts (Verna Felton), she must stay on the ruler's good side -- or risk losing her head.

Why It's A Wonderland

1. Beautiful animation that still holds up really well, especially for 1950s and Disney standards.
2. The visuals in Wonderland are amazing as they are very trippy and surreal.
3. The film is ahead of it's time in that said visuals would foreshadow the Counterculture era the following decade and psychedelic culture in general.
4. Superb storyline that doesn't copy many elements of other films.
5. It's relatively faithful to the book even if it does borrow some elements from it's sequel book.
6. Great performances, especially Kathryn Beaumont in both voiceover and rotoscoping.
7. Unlike most of Disney's previous and following animated feature films, it's not that Americanized because it retains England as the setting and many of the characters keep their nationalities and are played by English actors including the title character (though some of the characters are voiced by American voice actors such as the White Rabbit and the Dodo being voiced by Bill Thompson, who is American, and give some of them American and British accents).
8. Alice is the cutest and likable character in that unlike most other Disney female characters (especially the Disney Princesses), she is independent, not needing a love interest or male character of any other kind and able to stand up for herself as well as being curious and not overplayed.
9. Alice's design is adorable, even her iconic outfit is extremely cute.
10. The supporting characters are very interesting and entertaining in their own special ways such as The White Rabbit, The Mad Hatter, March Hare, Cheshire Cat, Tweedledee, and Tweedledum.
11. The Queen of Hearts is a hilarious villain, though she doesn't have much more screen-time and only appears in the third act.
12. Excellent musical songs, especially In a World of My Own and The Unbirthday Song.
13. It is one of the few Disney films that did not get a direct-to-video sequel that would've ruined the creative integrity of the original (except for the 2010 live action film).

Bad Qualities

1. Alice can be quite helpless sometimes even though this isn't overplayed.
2. Because it tries to combine both books in one, a few characters like the Duchess, the Griffin, the Mock Turtle, and the Knave of Hearts were got cut.
   • Humpty Dumpty wasn't included as well, although this video proves he was originally going to be added in a way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIzM2-b7ows
     • The end of the video shows a picture of Alice with the Duchess and the Cook, indicating they too were originally gonna be added.
   • There was supposed to be a scene involving the Jabberwock, but it was cut for "being too scary", which is kind of ridiculous, considering since many Disney's previous following animated movies, such as Pinocchio, Fantasia and Bambi, usually had their arguably scarier imagery and dark moments.
   • Apart from these, the trial scene is different to that of what was present in the original story. The trial was put against the Knave of Hearts for stealing the Queen's tarts while in here, Alice is the one put in trial for unintentionally harming the Queen.
3. The scene involving the Caterpillar smoking a hookah can be inappropriate for children.
   • In addition, there is a scene that to this day would be very disturbing and unpleasant, since the walrus (the one with an elegant suit) brings attention to some baby oysters that are girls and then the walrus takes them to devour them all in his table, which is a reference to pederasty (which is much worse than pedophilia and which is also illegal) and the trafficking of children that ends the lives of many children, which may be disturbing to young viewers but is also unacceptable in a movie for children.
4. Some audiences, who would be new to the film, would easily mistake Alice's elder sister for her mother prior to her physical appearance, which is unfamiliar to the fans of the Lewis Carroll's book.
5. Although the Queen of Hearts is agreeably considered the main antagonist of the film and hilarious, her role is not very large, since she only appeared in the third act, compared to other Disney antagonists who get a fair amount of screen time and appears in the all act.

Reception

When first released, it was panned by critics, particularly those from the original book's native United Kingdom and literary ones as well as fans of Carroll who criticized Disney for "Americanizing a great work of English literature", was a disappointment at the box office, and was never re-released theatrically in Walt Disney's lifetime.

The film was considered a flop on its initial release, leading to Walt Disney showing it on television as one of the first episodes of his TV series Disneyland. It proved to be very successful on television, especially during the psychedelic era. It was eventually re-released in theaters which proved to be massively successful. The film became even more successful through merchandising and subsequent home video releases.

The theme song of the same name has since become a jazz standard. While the film was critically panned on its initial release, it has since been regarded as one of Disney's greatest animated classics, notably one of the biggest cult classics in the animation medium, as well as one of the best film adaptations of Alice.

On the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Alice in Wonderland received an approval rating of 81% from 31 critical reviews with an average rating of 6.37/10. The consensus states, "A good introduction to Lewis Carroll's classic, Alice in Wonderland boasts some of the Disney canon's most surreal and twisted images.".

Trivia

• Walt Disney first attempted unsuccessfully to adapt Alice into an animated feature film during the 1930s. However, he finally revived the idea in the 1940s. The film was originally intended to be a live-action/animated film; however, Disney decided to make it an all-animated feature in 1946.

External links

• Alice in Wonderland (1951) at the Internet Movie Database
• Alice in Wonderland (1951) on Rotten Tomatoes

Comments

Loading comments...