Alice in Wonderland

This quickie version of the children's classic shot in New York doesn't actually compare that badly with the mess Paramount made of it a couple of years later, and achieves a fair degree of the book's wit and certainly its strangeness; which the cheap stylised sets if anything enhance. Director Bud Pollard does his best to embellish things with occasional optical and editing effects; although for most of the rest of the time his blocking of the action leaves something to be desired.

Against this ramshackle backdrop nineteen year-old Ruth Gilbert's good-humoured, gurgling-voiced Alice carries the film rather well; although looking nearly as bizarre to modern eyes as the rest of the cast in her obvious platinum-blonde wig and vampish Lily Munster makeup.

Apparently, this is the first talkie transmutation of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" to screen. Most others seem to rate this version relatively low, but it does surprisingly well in one important aspect of adaptation: retaining and cinematically translating the nonsense. Of only two years later, Paramount's 1933 iteration is good example of how stilted Alice movies can be. Sure, this low-budget 1931 film is a creaky early synchronized-sound film, has poor production values (the Mock Turtle part looks especially lousy), isn't particularly faithful to the source (e.g. a love affair between the White Rabbit and the Duchess), and the acting is atrocious, but it moves at a brisk pace and without the hindrance of ever appearing to take itself seriously. Indeed, for the first time in film history, the spectator heard some of Carroll's nonsensical wordplay to go along with the picture's visual imagination.

Setting the pace and tone from the start is a jazzy tune by Irving Berlin during the credits and opening shots, which is recycled from "Puttin' on the Ritz" (1930). Relatively rare for an early talkie, another early scene features a score as Alice's image is stretched and shrunk while staggering beside giant mushrooms--the film's only reference to the character's growing taller and smaller from the book. The picture jumps right into Wonderland, too, without the preamble of it being framed as a dream--although, of course, it still ends that way--or of her following the White Rabbit. Alice even seems to be breaking the fourth wall without a direct address to the audience with the first words spoken in the picture. The primitive special effects have a charm to them, as well; these include spinning images, use of distorting lenses, blurred images, superimpositions, iris masking, stop-substitutions and dissolves. Also somewhat unusual for a film from 1931, the camera movement has zing to it, including beginning shots with quick adjustments to focus on a character. There are many of these during the Mad Hatter's tea party, with some seemingly employed to disguise the editing, as though the camera is flowing between characters in a continuous tracking shot of their conversation. The only thing I think needlessly slows down the proceedings are the fade outs between episodes. Regardless, thanks to its pace of shot succession and scene dissection, the average shot length here of 9.75 seconds (my count) is good for a 1931 talkie.

Moreover, while the acting is generally poor, including actors looking off in strange directions (the Duchess and Alice not looking at each other while talking in one scene stands out), the Cheshire Cat stumbling through his lines, and some awful singing, everyone appropriately plays it light. Alice adaptations after the Disney cartoon tend to focus on the frightening aspects of the story, and some are decidedly more for adults than children, so it's refreshing to see this brisk early talkie have fun with the nonsense. Ruth Gilbert does a good Alice, too, in the respect that she plays the wide-eyed, slack-jawed and excitable dumb blonde part well. That Alice seems to be having fun makes all the difference.

The first "talking" movie version of "Alice in Wonderland," produced in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1931, two years before Paramount's all-star production. Ruth Gilbert stars as Lewis Carroll's heroine in this black and white featurette (running under an hour) directed by Bud Pollard.

I'd been casually searching for a copy for years, and finally managed to get ahold of a DVD copy of a pretty battered 16mm print.

Well. It's about what you'd expect for a 1931 talkie -- a creaky curiosity of a film with overly broad acting, awkward pauses, rudimentary costumes and sets and a primitive-sounding soundtrack.

I have a hard time imagining that anyone enjoyed watching this, even in 1931; it comes across as little more than a filmed community theater production of "Alice" without any real sense of Carroll's wit or whimsy. (Then again, that's how I also feel about the 1933 movie starring Charlotte Henry, despite its higher production values.) The climactic trial of the Knave of Hearts does boast a decidedly shocking twist not found in the book that probably had Lewis Carroll turning in his grave.

A heavily made-up Ruth Gilbert was about 18 when she played Alice; a little of her "little girl" routine goes a long way. Now and then she tries to affect what may have been a trans-Atlantic accent, but most of the time she carries on like a Broadway chorine. (When confronted by the other characters toward the end, this all-too-American Alice yells at them, "Come on, all of you! Who's afraid of a paltry pack of cards!")

Still, despite its shortcomings, this film remains interesting from a historical perspective, not only as the first sound "Alice," but also as a reminder of Fort Lee's prominent place in early film history.

I had no idea this curio even existed--I found it while looking for the 1933 version. It's not bad for an independent production of its era. The performances and costumes are fair enough, on the level of a decent stage production for children, even if most of the actors don't address their dialogue to each other--they stare straight forward while speaking, as if reading their lines off cue cards. The sets reveal the limited budgetary means, which of course counts in a fantasy like this--Wonderland feels no more surreal or magical than any random assortment of recycled theatrical backdrops and props.

Things start shockingly with an original Irving Berlin song (the film was shot in New York, and must have exploited some Broadway ties), but that opening-credits tune is the first and last we hear. Tonally, it does have more of Carroll's tart absurdism than many subsequent screen interpretations. However, the pedestrian execution makes it less than persuasive as entertainment either for kids or for adults.

As others have said, this Alice looks too old, but otherwise she's perfectly all right. She went onto a long career mostly on stage (including several premiere Eugene O'Neill productions) and in early television. This movie doesn't really work, but as a whimsical misfire it's not really any worse than Paramount's big-budget, starry "Alice" a couple years later. And it's short enough to satisfy your curiosity without turning into a real slog. Yes, it's "stagy," but no more so than most movies that came out in 1931.

Pretty much everything about Metropolitcan Studios' "Alice in Wonderland" is terrible. The camerawork is often cheap and the picture out of focus, the costumes terrible and disturbing, the acting is just awful as the leading lady often stares off into space like she's stoned, and the overall effect looks like an amateur community theater production...no better. I can see why the 1933 and 1951 versions are almost infinitely more famous. In fact, it's a chore just to finish the film....even though it is less than an hour in length.

While it might sound like I am exaggerating, but among the over 22,000 films I have so far reviewed on IMDB, it's clearly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Tedious and awful....and I'd rather eat my own foot than see it again. Don't say I didn't warn you.