Le avventure di Alice nel paese delle meraviglie

For those who love the Lewis Carroll book, this film version is one to see. Of the many film adaptations of this classic, this 1972 production stays the most faithful to the book. Events happen in the same way, in the same order, and much of the dialog is taken from the book, verbatim. And this really works, as writer Lewis Carroll had a unique way of playing with, and twisting the English language in delightful ways. Fiona Fullerton portrays well, a different kind of Alice here. This Alice is well into her teens, a fact which I thought would sabotage the production; The Alice from Carroll's book was a young child, around 7 or 8 years old. But the gorgeous Fiona Fullerton plays the part with a perfect measure of wonder and innocence, instead of just being an older person foolishly trying to act like a small child. The film has a haunting, dreamlike quality, a certain surreal atmosphere aided by composer John Barry's pretty background score, which is sad and wistful, and dramatic. There are musical sequences in this film, some work better than others to be sure, as this is far from a perfect film. But the songs seem to get better as the film goes along. The thing that really impressed me is the art design, and costume design. The film makers brilliantly designed much of the costumes and landscapes based on those wonderful lithographs that have always accompanied the book. As children, we tend to look to the illustrations to help us get a better idea of how things and people look as we read along. It is quite amazing to see such images come to life, after existing in the imagination for so long. Not all costumes work, as again, this is an uneven production. However certain characters, the King and Queen of hearts, and the Duchess, the cook, the Frog Footman, and of course, Alice herself, dressed in the gorgeous blue dress with white apron;amazing. For instance, watch the scenes with the living cards in the rose garden, and tell me that wasn't how you pictured it while reading the book all those years ago. It is apparent here that the film makers cared a great deal about the material. Perhaps a few scenes fall a little flat, but the good outweighs the bad here, most definitely. Standout scenes, besides the croquet game in the garden, the crazy dance with Alice and the Griffith and the Tortoise, and Peter Seller's funny turn as the March Hare, whose face was mostly covered by his costume, forcing him to utilize his bulging eyes in a sometime s hilarious fashion. Dudley Moore appeared to be drunk as the sleepy dormouse, which I found hilarious as well. The scene where Alice wanders through the dark forest and comes across the bizarre Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum is strange, even a bit scary, especially when the raven comes and the forest turns still darker. Even though Tweedle Dee And Tweedle Dumm are actually from "Through the Looking Glass", this scene fits well into this tale, and is one of the most effective sequences of them all. But my favorite scene has to be where Alice enters the house of the Duchess, where she is bouncing a baby savagely on her knee while the furious cook makes her pepper soup, stopping only to hurl dishes at everyone around her. Absolutely hysterical! Also worthy of mention is the special effects found here. Alice must continually change size, and this looks amazingly real, especially considering that this was made in 1972, long before CGI effects. The unfortunate thing with this title is that there has yet to be an official DVD release. The only available editions on DVD are of extremely bad quality. I am grateful to have any version of this film, but the DVD features colors that are so washed out that at times, the film seems to be black & white. This is a shame, as color is so important here, with sets that are real eye candy. For an idea of what the film looks like, imagine the "Wizard of Oz". The look of "Alice" is very similar to that one. I imagine a restored version with the vibrant colors brought back would be absolutely eye popping to behold. This must have a cult following, and I believe a proper DVD release would be appreciated by many. Recommended for fans of strange cinema!

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.

i first saw this version of carroll's tale as a child on thanksgiving day, and i did not forget how much i enjoyed it. i caught it years later as a teenager on cable, taped it, and did not grow tired of watching it repeatedly. i think that this movie adaption is the best and most faithful to the book that i have seen. the pace is brisk, the songs are lively, the overall musical score is very nice (especially "the me i never knew"), the acting is acceptable, the costume design and sets work well (with the exception of using a painting of the palace that was supposed to be a shot of the real thing in one scene), and it is quite funny in some parts. overall, it was nicely done, and remains a film i can continue to watch repeatedly as an adult.

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.

This adaptation of Lewis Carroll's weird and wonderful book tries hard to do justice to its source, but doesn't quite get there. The music by John Barry is saccharine and unmemorable for the most part; although things do pick up when the Mock Turtle and Gryphon (Michael Hordern and Spike Milligan, inspired casting!) lead Alice in a mad dance.

Young Fiona Fullerton looks the part and sings well - she'd go on to front a number of musicals - but the other characters just stop on the wrong side of odd and scary, making them not frightening in the least. The White Rabbit (Michael Crawford) dashes around, the Mad Hatter, March Hare, and Dormouse have their odd tea party (Robert Helpmann, Peter Sellers, and Dudley Moore in another highlight of the film), the Duchess's baby turns into a pig (the Duchess is played by Peter Bull, who turned in a number of grotesque female roles in cinema), and the Queen of Hearts orders everyone's heads off (a waste of Flora Robson's talents).

The film needed a bit of imagination to take off (for another interpretation of the creatures, see the 1980s film 'Dreamchild', with horrific creations from Jim Henson's workshop); as it is, it passes the time but has little fizz.