Alice of Wonderland in Paris

Part of the Paramount "Family Matinee" series.

This is a Madeline story then a version of Alice. 1966 animation. And a gawd awful fake French accent mouse voice of Allen Swift.

Introducing stories by: Gene Deitch (also the director) Ludwig Bemelmans - stories "Madeline and the Bad Hat", "Madeline and the Gypsies" Crockett Johnson - story "The Frowning Prince" James Thurber - story "Many Moons" Eve Titus - story "Anatole"

I shan't go into details per se. But if you're expecting a version of Alice in Wonderland this is not the film for you. Alice does eat mushroom cheese.

However, if you're interested in Madeline and some interesting stories for kids this is not a bad animated film.

"Alice of Wonderland in Paris" doesn't have much to do with Lewis Carroll's books; indeed, this limited-animation feature has very little to do with itself. Seemingly, a connective outer narrative was created to bring together five otherwise separate cartoon shorts. Then, it was sold as a feature-length anthology film. This was still rather short for a feature, and so during its theatrical run, it was paired with another short cartoon. In the feature, Alice of Wonderland reads "Madeline" and so wants to visit Paris. She looks through the mirror, à la "Through the Looking Glass," and sees a French mouse appear. The mouse leads her to Paris after he tells the first unrelated inner story. Their trip to Paris is accomplished by Alice eating some magic cheese to make her shrink to a size able to fit through the mouse hole (as opposed to the rabbit hole of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"). The nested narratives include "Anatole," about another rodent cheese connoisseur; two Madeline stories: "Madeline and the Bad Hat" and "Madeline and the Gypsies;" and two especially-irrelevant royal fairy tales: "The Frowning Prince" and "Many Moons." Alice and the mouse take turns as storyteller. In the end, Alice discovers that Madeline of Paris is likewise reading about Alice of Wonderland. Small world, huh.

Well, not legendary, however, timeless, maybe. My 3 year old and I just watched this film again, not that Digiview put it out on DVD, and she remained focused on the film from beginning to end. So, that says a lot! The story wasn't wonderful, but the way it grabbed my daughter's attention, was unique! I was also a bit amused as I watched this film. Realizing that I was watching this classic (meaning "old") of a film, and hearing Rob Reiner's voice was quite cool! Another rather cool thing is knowing that I can find films like this thru grocery stores like Walgreens & CVS. Although, one thing was...it was called something else. When I bought the film, it was called "Alice in Paris" but it was actually the very same film!