Alice au pays des merveilles

I am one of those who loves the book, it is timeless and nostalgic. Out of all the film versions, the Disney film is my personal favourite of them all, because it is colourful and I loved watching it as a child. This 1972 film is an interesting if not quite as magical musical take on the classic, while uneven in pace and a little too short, and having one or two tacky costumes(ie. Doormouse) it is well worth seeing. It is also a shame that when it is shown on television, the adverts make the film lose its narrative flow and there are times when the quality of the picture is somewhat grainy. There is much to enjoy though. The sets are wondrous and very colourful, the cinematography is lovely and the film is fairly faithful to the book. The script has its amusing moments, and the songs and score are sweet and memorable. As Alice, Fiona Fullerton does a credible job making a character who could have easily been bland quite innocent and sings tunefully. Though I do think she is overshadowed by her co-stars, Michael Horden's melancholic Mock Turtle, Peter Sellers's hilarious March Hare, Robert Helpmann's(who was absolutely terrifying in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) eccentric Mad Hatter, Ralph Richardson's knowing Caterpillar, Spike Milligan's fun Gryphon, Flora Robson's shrill Queen of Hearts and Michael Crawford's interesting White Rabbit are the definite highlights. In terms of favourite scenes, definitely the tea party sequence, it was fun. Overall, flawed yet interesting. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This is perhaps the most faithful version of Alice in Wonderland. The dialogue is practically verbatim and the visuals are made to resemble the original illustrations drawn by John Tenniel. Composer John Barry provides the story with a collection of beautifully enchanting songs, many of which are straight out of the book.

The cast is more like a convention of every popular British performer known at that time, including a pre-Phantom Michael Crawford as the White Rabbit, Peter Sellers as a hilariously insane March Hare, Dudley Moore as the Dormouse, Robert Helpmann as the Mad Hatter (aka the Child Catcher for moviegoers, aka Royal Ballet for ballet-goers), and humorist Spike Milligan as the Gryphon. Fiona Fullerton plays a delightfully impressionable Alice, despite the fact that she is much older than the Alice of the book.

This movie is perfect for children and adults who want to see a literal translation of the book, made back in the days when moviemakers truly cared about entertaining audiences (and it's fun to wonder how they made Alice grow and shrink when they didn't have the aid of computer effects)!

Despite the widely held opinion that the material is unfilmable, Lewis Carroll's fantasy/nonsense classics Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) have frequently been dramatized for films and television. Although few of these productions have successfully translated Carroll's verbal and intellectual experimentation into cinema, several are of superior quality and hold an under-appreciated place in the history of the fantastic film.

The initial rejection of Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951) must have seemed like a final and irrefutable validation of the dictum that any film based on this work of literature -- even one produced under the auspices of a major creative force -- is a doomed proposition. Yet, twenty-one years later, British producer Joseph Shaftel dared to attempt another major theatrical film version as a belated celebration of the centennial of one of England's greatest national literary treasures. This visually beautiful musical brings John Tenniel's famous illustrations to vivid life and is in general the best live-action film version of the classic. Approached in the proper spirit this literate film is a magical experience.

Carroll's characters are played by a distinguished all-star cast including Michael Crawford (the White Rabbit), Dudley Moore (the Dormouse), Ralph Richardson (the Caterpillar) and Peter Sellers (the March Hare), with Michael Hordern, Spike Milligan, Dennis Price and Flora Robson. Robert Helpmann (the wicked ChildCatcher of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) played the Mad Hatter and also choreographed.

Teenage Fiona Fullerton was an ideal Alice for the film, bringing beauty, warmth and a soft, winsome quality to the neurotic (and difficult) character. Fullerton had previously been seen as one of the daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra in the 1971 film, which incidentally starred Michael Jayston, who appears here as "Lewis Carroll/Rev. Dodgson". As an adult Fullerton starred opposite Richard Harris in a major London revival of Camelot, and appeared as a gorgeous Bond Girl in A View to a Kill.

The film's cinematic distinction is its extraordinarily beautiful photography by Geoffrey Unsworth, B.S.C. (2001: A Space Odyssey; Cabaret), whose graceful images and fluid, balletic camera movements create a dream-like atmosphere. Equally striking is the imaginative production design by Michael Stringer (Fiddler on the Roof), who made the most of a moderate budget to create a spectacular artificial Wonderland plainly influenced by The Wizard of Oz (1939). As with Oz, elaborate character makeups and costumes carefully expose the personalities of the performers, unlike the stiff masks which stifle the actors in the 1933 Paramount version. And the film boasts some eye-popping (pre-CGI) special effects, with Alice's changes in size being impressively executed.

The haunting orchestral score by John Barry, then best known for The Lion in Winter and the James Bond films, finds the contrasting emotional mood underlying the cool cerebral surface. There is sprightly music enough but the score reflects a wistful, eerie and otherworldly quality evocative of Carroll's theme of loss of childhood. Original songs by Barry and Don Black (the "Born Free" team) include "Curiouser and Curiouser", which establishes the theme of the child awakening through bewilderment to new awareness, and "The Me I Never Knew", which poignantly resolves that theme.

The scenario, by director William Sterling, is very faithful Carroll's first "Alice" book, although a scene with the Cheshire Cat was cut prior to release, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee (from Through the Looking Glass) are included for good measure. Every major episode and character are retained, with dialogue taken verbatim from the text. New to the story is a prologue and epilogue dramatizing the famous Fourth of July river excursion undertaken by Lewis Carroll (in his real-life guise as the Rev. Charles L. Dodgson of Christ Church, Oxford), Rev. Duckworth, and the three Liddell Sisters, Lorina, Alice and Edith, in the course of which was told for the first time the story of Alice's Adventures Under Ground. This lovely sequence is imaginatively blended in the film with the tale itself.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was made at a time when the British film industry was rapidly dying. The film debuted in America at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, was greeted with condescension by critics, and vanished into undeserved obscurity. Its value as a sincere and true reproduction of Carroll has not gone entirely unappreciated, however, and has been accorded a degree of respect in scholarly studies. Originally stunning in Todd-AO 35 widescreen, the film is badly in need of restoration and a decent DVD re-release.

There have been many adaptations of Lewis carol's work. However, I believe this version is the most enjoyable of all. Both children and adults will find this film entertaining. This version has a unique opening/closing envelope. With the ending showing that her dream had actually changed Alice's persona: "from now on I'll be the me I never knew." Unlike Irwin Allen's 1985 version (which amalgamated "Wonderland" and "Looking Glass" together) or the special-effects over-ridden 1999 version, this film takes the best of the Wonderland story and displays it with a richness that is pleasant and memorable. The addition of John Barry's (better known for his score's to the early James Bond films) music only adds to the sense of wonder that we share with Alice in her adventure. The music indeed elevates this version to the status of art in the truest sense rather than just another movie. Heck, it was better than the one Disney came out with -- that should say a lot.

Interesting fact, this film features Micheal Crawford as the WHITE RABBIT. Better known for his roles, Frank Spencer in "Some Mothers do Ave Em" and the Phantom in the stage production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera." A curious footnote on his carrier.

A book which details the strange adventures of a young girl in a surreal dreamworld is perhaps not a natural subject for a film, but Lewis Carroll's classic has been filmed many times. Few if any, however, of those filmed versions have themselves achieved classic status. The one exception is possibly Disney's cartoon version; this live-action British version from the early 1970s is less well known but is, I think, superior.

Unlike the Disney version, this film stays faithful to Lewis Carroll's original text, except in one respect. Carroll probably envisaged Alice as a little girl (although her exact age is not given in the book, and Tenniel's famous illustrations show a strange child-woman with a twenty-year-old head on ten-year-old shoulders). In this film, however, Alice is not a child but a beautiful teenager on the verge of womanhood. Although purists may not approve of this change, in my view it actually strengthens the film, in two ways. The first is that Fiona Fullerton makes an enchanting Alice and brings a wonderful sense of freshness and innocence to the role. Paradoxically, she seems more child-like than would many child-actors, whose stock-in-trade is often a brash knowingness and the ability to seem old beyond their years.

The second reason why the film works better with an older Alice is that it attempts to explore the psychological sub-texts of the original novel in a way that the Disney version, for example, did not. The story has a deeper significance than that of merely an entertaining children's story. Alice's bizarre adventures are symbolic of the process of discovery of oneself and of the wider world which constitutes growing up. No doubt amateur Freudians could have great fun interpreting the various incidents, but it is not my purpose here to comment on these interpretations. It is enough to say that Alice must, as must we all, try to make sense of a world which often seems strange and bewildering. Her world is simply a bit stranger than everyone else's is. Given that adolescence is for many of us a difficult, disorientating period, an Alice who is on the border between childhood and adulthood seems entirely appropriate. The title of the film's best-known song, `The Me I Never Knew', strengthens the idea that the book is about the attainment of self-knowledge.

Miss Fullerton is ably assisted by a splendid supporting cast, including some of the best-known British comedians of the period (Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore, Michael Crawford, Spike Milligan, Roy Kinnear) and some actors better known for more serious roles (Ralph Richardson, Michael Hordern). Perhaps the cost of employing so many well-known names emptied the budget, as the sets look rather cheap and crudely made. That, however, is not a serious criticism; indeed, one could even say that the unreal-looking sets contribute to the strange, dreamlike feel of this film. In a surrealist film, realism is not a virtue. 8/10.