peteralanrobertsla

Like that other 1903 "adaptation" Uncle Tom's Cabin, this very short movie is a succession of illustrations brought to life before a static camera. The Great Train Robbery of this same year was a great cinematic step forward in its use of film as story-telling. Nevertheless, Alice is a gem that has survived the ravages of time miraculously if rather battered. It is very primitive, but that also lends it a great charm, particularly the procession of the cards and their chase of Alice, with its host of little children dressed up as cards and having great fun on a sunny day in the park. For those who are not Alice lovers, this may barely register, but aficionados may happily have it on a permanent loop filling one whole side of a plasma screen wall (in a few years time that is). It is a strong candidate crying out for restoration, even though a number of frames will remain missing, particularly of the dog, who would later gain fame in Rescued by Rover! Have a happy Wonderland!

Poor De Sade, persecuted and imprisoned in his lifetime, misrepresented after his death, and unlike one-time-fellow-prisoner Laclos, author of Dangerous Liaisons, is persecuted and tortured on film. Appalling cinematography, grating music, atrocious acting, and a director who praised Palance's what-was-he-thinking turn and despised the very presence of Power as Justine, although she was almost the only one who wasn't mugging in every scene. What was Mercedes McCambridge on? Dear Klaus Kinski, no wonder he spends his time running desperately from one set of bars to the other: "Get me out of this movie! I'm trapped in it forever!" They even removed his vocal cords. Still, a few points for Power's sweet breasts and eyes, and some other brief anatomical contributions by others. Poor Donatien, even Geoffrey Rush assassinated him while he was dead. At least there is Salo.

I saw this in the cinema in Wales in the mid-sixties. As a horror movie it was an X, no under- sixteens allowed. I'd started going to them at the age of twelve, it was usually lax at the ticket office, but sharply disappointing when the strictures were enforced. I felt rather scared as the monster formed and rolled his eyes, terrified of what was to come but as I left the cinema I had been (coming on top of seeing too many of the infuriatingly hackneyed Hammer movies) cured of my addiction to horror movies, it was so stupid ('dumb'). Then I came across the photo-story version, containing all the parts that had been sliced out. I felt as if I was the victim of a grave misjustice, and wrote an essay in school on how the Horror of Beach Party had inexplicably failed to deliver on its death and mayhem. My English Literature teacher did not sympathies. Oddly enough I would love to see it again (in its full glory, to redress the horror of censorship that my inner child is still wounded by), but doubt if I would love actually seeing it. It seems like a long time, but it was less than a decade, before The Exorcist came to the rescue of dark cinema.