Alice in Wonderland

Beautifully filmed in a satiny black & white reminiscent of old photographs, this 1966 BBC adaptation of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" may displease purists for its less than conventional, as well as decidedly minimalist, approach. It's not a traditional rendering of Lewis Carroll, and doesn't pretend to be; there are no phantasmagoric sets or actors encased in over-sized costumes or big musical numbers or fancy photographic effects. The Alice of this production is a taciturn, stony-faced girl who is neither frightened nor fascinated by her experiences in Wonderland, which is mostly made up of the interiors and exteriors of old English mansions and houses. But in its unorthodox way, it brings Carroll's text to life in a way I don't recall experiencing in other adaptations of the Alice books.

It's apparent that in creating this alternative Alice, producer-director Jonathan Miller expects you to be already familiar with its source; he's evidently assuming you will recognize what he's chosen to leave in as well as leave out, as well as his re-imagined settings. Only a few of the actors are made to look anything like the characters in the Tenniel drawings, such as Leo McKern as the Duchess or Peter Cook as the Mad Hatter; you're basically on your own when it comes to spotting the White Rabbit or Caterpillar or Frog Footman, all of whom are dressed "normally" in period costumes. (Presenting the Carrollian characters as real people isn't a new idea; I recall a TV adaptation of Alice starring Kate Burton in which Humpty Dumpty was portrayed by an elderly man in a rocking chair.)

By tossing out entire scenes, characters and exchanges that were in the book, Miller gives us a sparer, edgier retelling of the Wonderland story, but doesn't stray too far from the original. Why such a sullen, passive Alice? My guess is, this is supposed to be an Alice who fully realizes that she's in a dream and treats her surroundings accordingly.

And so this Alice (played by a charming Anne-Marie Mallik) sits looking bored and disinterested during the Mad Tea Party. Other productions customarily play this scene with all kinds of manic energy, but in this film, the tea party is deliberately drawn out with long, open rhythms reminiscent of an Antonioni or Resnais film. (Alice's Adventures in Marienbad, anyone?) And seemingly for the first time, while I was listening to the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse prattle away, their nonsense started to make wonderful sense. It's easy enough for an actor to recite lines like, "What day of the month is it?," but here, the performers sound like they really mean what they say (and say what they mean).

That same emphasis on dialogue is apparent in the beach scene with the Mock Turtle, played by Sir John Gielgud, and the Gryphon, played by Malcolm Muggeridge. The Mock Turtle's words never sounded so delightful to me before, and thank goodness Gielgud didn't have to deliver them through some huge Mock Turtle mask. This scene also provides one of the movie's most striking images, of the Mock Turtle, the Gryphon and Alice walking barefoot along the shore, with Gielgud softly singing the "Lobster Quadrille" a cappella.

For those seeking a more conventional book-to-film translation of "Alice," I would suggest the 1972 British movie musical starring Fiona Fullerton, complete with elaborate sets and costumes and velvety color photography and songs. Although it was slammed by the relatively few reviewers who saw it, I thought it nicely conveyed a dreamlike quality of its own, especially in its transitions - I found it much more enjoyable than the 1933 Paramount movie or the 1951 Disney animated feature.

But if you think you've had your fill of Alice movies and TV shows, then I urge you to try this one - I think it makes Lewis Carroll sound fresh all over again. (There's very interesting musical accompaniment by Ravi Shankar.) And for a wonderfully acted movie about the real- life Alice Liddell Hargreaves and Lewis Carroll, I urge you to see "Dreamchild" - but that's another review.

This is an experimental TV-movie from the BBC's "Wednesday Play" anthology. That series was always willing to risk trying something different, and this ambitious, low-budget "Alice" is certainly different. I don't exactly *enjoy* this film, but it's certainly fascinating.

I appreciate it as an experiment in what television could do. I admire the cast of iconic and talented Britons who wouldn't normally coincide in the same project: Peter Sellers, John Gielgud, Leo McKern (in drag as the Duchess), Michael Redgrave, Peter Cook, Wilfrid Brambell, Alan Bennett, Malcolm Muggeridge, etc.

I also admire the creativity it took to imagine this quintessentially British tale accompanied by Ravi Shankar music.

Some viewers may find the film too creepy and surreal, but the original book is pretty disturbing to begin with. This film is fairly incoherent, but then so is the book, which follows the ever-shifting logic of a dream.

The biggest problem (aside from pacing that now seems too leisurely) is that Miller's production assumes you already know what's going on. For instance, it assumes you know that the two men dressed as... um... men are actually the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle.

In other words, this is an "Alice" for people who are already overdosed on adaptations of "Alice," and who might appreciate a weirdly different take on the familiar story. Or to narrow that audience a bit, people age 12 and up who might appreciate a different take on the story.

First time I saw this was on December 28th 1966 which was its first broadcast on BBC1, the next time was exactly 42 years later on a pristine BFI DVD. I was worried my childhood memories might be shattered by discovering it was simply a trippy '60's cop-out, but I needn't have been. Sure, it's a product of its time same as everything is, but it was and remains a unique filming of the classic tale by Lewis Carroll and imho the best version made so far.

Young Alice is transported by dream one sunny summer day to Wonderland where many adventures befall her. Whether Carroll was attracted or not to little girls ("I like all children, except boys") and whether that explains why his diaries had some ripped out pages at key moments is something we'll never know for sure now - I think he was merely a repressed idealist – but he created a timeless story for children of all ages. His 90 page painstakingly hand written original edition which he gave to Alice in 1864 as "a Christmas gift to a dear child in memory of a summer day" is currently online from the British Museum and well worth a read.

Jonathan Miller's erudite sharp focus black and white production assumed that it was really meant for satirical adults, however it still managed to impress this particular 7 year old and especially his 5 year old wife to be and their counterparts 42 years later. Favourite bits: Michael Redgrave as the Caterpillar and John Geilgud as the Mock Turtle; Alice's walk with Duchess Leo McKern down the path through the woods followed by the camera crew weaving in and out of the trees and forward and backward; almost every scene has something of note though. Maybe I could have done with a bit more of Ravi Shankar's exceptional tunes but no worries. It's a pity John Bird's and Peter Sellers' post Goon Show improvisations were left in - it's no good Miller saying it was in the spirit of Carroll when their obvious inspiration was Spike Milligan, just one eg from 1954's Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler Of Bexhill On Sea: "Suddenly! Nothing happened! But it happened suddenly mark you!" And I still wonder how much the production influenced the Beatles with their image for 1967? Apparently the finished film was considered too long by the BBC and 30 minutes were chopped off. Off with their heads - all those potential Pinteresque moments lost!

This is something to treasure: an arty BBC film that was genuinely arty, entertaining and still eminently watchable generations later. It almost managed to capture the illusive illusionary qualities of dreams and those seemingly beautifully languid sunny days of the '60's – both 19th and 20th century.

Probably will remain in my top 3 Alice in Wonderland film adaptations (it only covers the first book), just below Svankmajer's wonderfully surreal stop-motion version, titled Alice, and I'm somewhat ambivalent about whether I prefer the Disney version or not-it's nicely colored and the characters are more similar to the drawings In Carroll's book, but it has the goofiness of a Disney film, of course. This adaptation is quite faithful to the original book, though a few scenarios might have been removed for time or were altered in some way, but most of the dialogue remains the same.

I was expecting it to feel more like a big studio production, and while the production values were quite good, it's not reminiscent of a Hollywood film or the British equivalent. It has the aura of a B&W art film-and the girl playing Alice (makes me think of a French New Wave heroine), who never smiles, often scowls, is rather sullen, often avoids eye contact or talks while not even looking at the character she's speaking to, and is clearly older than 7 (I believe that was the stated age of Alice in the book). Though she's a bit sassy in the book and not a push over or anything, her behavior seems altered quite a bit based off my, admittedly somewhat time-eroded, memories of Alice and Wonderland. The other change is, while the film is quite faithful in terms of the scenes adapted, the actors are all humans with no attempts to dress them up as the curious assortment of talking animals, odd creatures, and flat card-like men and women found in the book.

The choice of sitar music, with occasional accompaniment, by Ravi Shankar (and someone else I hadn't heard of on oboe) was an interesting and surprisingly fitting choice. I always imagined Canterbury prog or some old folk music with flutes.

In some sense I think it has a more dream-like continuity than the book, because the whimsical passages of Carroll lend's the novel a more structured and deliberate quality, compared to the way the scenes flow and our edited in this version.

I'm not sure I completely buy Jonathan Miller's account of the book, but his interpretation (as he explains it on the commentary track) is pretty wonderful on balance. It's funny, surprising, beautiful and mostly about the nature of dreams. The cast, for fans of British movies and TV of the period, may have never been equaled. There's one from "Help", there's one from "A Hard Day's Night", there's the midget from "The Prisoner!" Wonderful. The only real question is "Where's Dudley Moore?" At any rate, I just found out about this movie, it's only been out on DVD for a year or two but it's one I think I will always treasure.