Alice in Wonderland

Cecil Hepworth is a vitally important figure in Britain's early cinema, but his achievements were compromised by the fact that he was a poor businessman and poor planner. Prints of his most popular films -- such as "Comin' Thro the Rye" and "The Joke that Failed" -- were sold outright to exhibitors, causing Hepworth to wear out the original negatives. In order to meet continuing demand for new prints, he was forced to re-shoot these movies in their entirety! Hepworth probably deserves credit for filming the first remake.

Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll, author of 'Alice in Wonderland') died in 1898, in the very earliest years of Britain's cinema, and there is no surviving record of him ever having seen a movie. (Dodgson's vast archive of correspondence was burnt by his family after his death, and his diary was censored: there may well have been a movie review in there someplace.) Yet I'm 100% certain that Dodgson would have been a cinephile. He was an expert and enthusiastic amateur photographer, he had a deep love of the theatre, and the 'Alice' books contain several devices which seem more cinematic than literary: Alice is subjected to the shot change, the jump cut, the dissolve, and so forth.

Cecil Hepworth's 1903 film version of 'Alice in Wonderland' -- apparently the first movie version of that oft-filmed book -- was made barely five years after Dodgson's death. Scantly nine minutes long, this crude 'trick' movie necessarily shows only a few fragments of the novel. The uncredited production designer (Hepworth himself?) has clearly made considerable effort to base the sets and costumes on Sir John Tenniel's beloved illustrations, so it's strange that the central character looks nothing at all like Tenniel's Alice: the actress cast here has long black hair, and her pinafore is nearly ankle-length.

Quite impressively, Alice actually falls into a genuine hole in the ground. To show her plunging vertically (as in the novel) would have been technically difficult to stage, so we see her creeping through a slanting shaft, in an impressive cutaway shot (the cinema's first)? Some of the special effects are achieved through simple jump cuts, much less flamboyant than what Georges Melies was doing in France at this time. Alice's growth spurt in the White Rabbit's house is amusingly staged by placing the actress intentionally too close to the camera, in an undersized set.

I was impressed by one elaborate bit of pageantry in an exterior shot. Alice stands on a broad greensward (apparently a partial matte shot) while the 52 members of the pack of cards parade past her, one suit at a time.

The print which I viewed had neatly typeset intertitles, but was an acetate print several generations removed from the original ... so I can't tell if these titles date back to Hepworth's original 1903 production, or were added later. Oddly, the opening title makes a point of telling us that Alice's adventure is a dream: this was only implied in the first chapter of the original novel. More significantly, the dominant figure at the Mad Tea Party is identified in a title here as 'the Mad Hatter'. This usage is now quite common, but it never appears in Carroll's original novel: nowhere in the text of 'Alice in Wonderland' is the word 'Hatter' immediately preceded by the word 'mad'. The expression 'mad as a hatter' refers to the fact that 19th-century hatters often developed nervous tics from exposure to the highly toxic vapours of mercuric nitrate. Men's hats in Victorian times were made of felt; 19th-century hatters cured the felt by a process called 'carroting' which left a carrot-coloured residue. Since the Hatter in Carroll's novel is never explicitly cried 'the Mad Hatter', I'm surprised to find evidence that this popular mis-usage may have been in place as early as 1903. I wish I could establish the origin of these title cards.

Hepworth's production of 'Alice in Wonderland' is extremely crude by modern standards, and leaves out most of the plot of Carroll's book, as well as the wonderful wordplay. But this film was an extremely ambitious undertaking for its time, and it achieves nearly all of what it set out to accomplish. I'll rate it 9 out of 10.

At eight minutes this was actually considered a long film and it is a very condensed version of the book Alice in Wonderland.

Unfortunately these early film stocks have degraded and even though this version is restored, it still makes for difficult viewing but at least its preserved.

Special effects are used to show Alice growing and shrinking and the latter scenes has a large gathering of costumed characters as Alice encounters the Queen of Hearts. The footage of the Cheshire Cat looks rather charming as it also highlights almost 'stone age' special effects technique.

Its hard to rate these films properly as they are essentially surviving examples of the history of the cinema.

A lovely film. For its status of historical document, for precise and wise sinthesis of the book , for touching special effects and for the air of innocence , very useful in the time of blockbusters. Sort, a seductive surprise and good opportunity for discover , again, the talented Cecil Hepworth and his special work.

This 1903 film by Cecil M. Hepworth is said to be THE first adaptation of the classic story "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. Running at a little over 8 minutes, the film is laughably poor when looked at today because of its primitiveness. However, such a comparison is not allowed because of its age. You cannot criticize this movie for having no computer graphics because there were none by 1903. Instead, superimposing and dissolves were done in a much harder way (some as overlaying different filmstrips) and took a great deal of work, so the special effects used in "Alice in Wonderland" are actually very good for the time.

The story is not entirely told in this short adaptation. Instead, Hepworth presents some of the highlights of the book--the shrinking and growing to get through the door, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, the Queen of Hearts. Because it is so old, it is understandable he didn't tell the whole thing--full-length feature movies were still in the future. Unfortunately, even if modern audiences could still find interest in this, any chance of that would be ruined by film deterioration. Not a few specks and scratches, actual, crumbling deterioration. You can see what is going on for the most part, but the truth is, modern audiences just won't find much value is any of it and film buffs who are used to this sort of thing will get much more out of this beat-up copy.

That said, for me it does have some interesting things to note. At the beginning of the film, they superimposed the short's title on the bush by which Alice sits before she falls asleep. This is something I don't think I've seen before from the early silent era and looks more up-to-date then a title card (although it was still there when the White Rabbit came along, so when he passed his head in front of it you could see his head right through the type). Also, several title cards are included as well which look authentic, not modern cards added to help with the story. This would make it one of the first movies to use title cards and thus very much ahead of its time.

The remnants of this silent movie was added to Jonathan Miller's Alice DVD as a Bonus.It has to be viewed as an historical document and hardly for entertainment value. But May Clarke deserved a better fate than being called "ugly".I have a photo of her on one of my Alice sites and she's at least attractive enough. This was the final film of the 3 she made,all before 1904 so there's no evidence of what her speaking voice was like. In answer to that rather ignorant remark I don't think any movie studios at this time employed children but the age of Alice should not be brought into question when you realize many older actreses played her.The child star was yet to be invented and all actors came from the stage When you think of it this Alice silent is now over 100 years old