"Alice In Wonderland" (1951)

The older Disney Movies were so much better. The animation was so distinct from any other, and I think it’s nearly lost that originality now in the newer ones. New artists, I suppose! I think actually this one was one of my favourites when I was younger. I still enjoy it now, I have to say!

The story of Alice In Wonderland actually originated as an 1865 novel titled “Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland” written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. Three years before the novel was produced, he and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed in a boat up a river with the three young daughters of Henry Liddell. During the trip, Dodgson told the girls a story about a bored girl named Alice who went looking for an adventure. The girls loved it and asked that he write it down, and thus after another boat trip and more elaborating on the tale, Alice In Wonderland was born. Since this book was produced, over the years there have been many stories, sequels and adaptations revolving around Alice’s adventures.

Walt Disney loved the Alice stories and her influence was always there amidst his creations even before this film was made. From the 1930s there is a Mickey Mouse cartoon “Through The Mirror” which is a takeoff on ‘Alice In Wonderland’ where Mickey goes through the mirror to this whole other world where he dances with a deck of cards...similar to this movie. He was working on his ambition to bring Alice to the screen way back in the 1930s, and many of the storyboard sketches from this time did end up in the film twenty years later. It was the hardest film to come up with a concrete plan of how it would be shaped because of the wide range of material existing and it was difficult to adapt. A lady named Mary Blair was a concept artist and art director in the Disney studios, who produced the artwork for this film, as well as for Cinderella and Peter Pan. A concept artist provides many paintings and colour pallets as a means of informing how the entire film will look. The card sequence in this film is particularly effective in terms of artwork as the boldness of red and black stand out very well against the various shades of grey. As a whole, her style is very distinctive.

All the characters are fantastically unique; the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the Queen, the Caterpillar, the White Rabbit – all so eccentric in their own way. My favourite character was always the Do-Do! I find the way he talks so amusing, I always smile. He really has some of the best lines out of the film. There are so many iconic lines throughout actually: “A very, very un-birthday”, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date”, “Off with their heads”! They’re all so memorable. The little details included in this film are so imaginative and creative. Each of the characters inside Wonderland are very unique. You won’t get anything quite like it again. I was very surprised to realise that there are actually are more songs on screen in this film than any other Disney film!

Kathryn B. Levine (the voice of Alice) was apparently involved in every scene of the film, not just the voice of Alice! She would have participated in the live action, in which they would have acted out certain scenes to provide inspiration for the artists. Ed Wynn was the voice of the Mad Hatter, and if you watch the behind the scenes of his involvement in the live action, he’s just hilarious. He’s brilliant; the facial expressions and everything. Apparently he was adlibbing for a lot of it, which is more remarkable. As opposed to recording his lines again for the tea-party scene, what we hear in the film is actually his performance during the live action because they felt they would not get it as funny again.

The story of Alice In Wonderland appeals to everyone of all ages and generations, and will continue to do so in years to come, because it’s just so absurd. It questions the form of logic, by bringing surrealism into play, as well as introducing funny and peculiar words, like “curiouser” and “exacitally” which children love. I think, however, that many of the older Disney movies had slightly vulgar notions that wouldn’t exactly be tolerated in children’s TV these days. For one thing, the very idea of being decapitated (which is suggested here!) is very violent, but that’s the punishment one receives if the Queen isn’t happy with you! Even the idea of an old lady coming to Snow White with a poisonous apple, I don’t think, would be accepted in this age.

I like that everything that’s mentioned throughout the film ties in together with another aspect at one point or another. We hear of the un-birthday celebrations when we meet the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, and then this comes back again later during Alice’s trial where they’re off singing about it again. We meet the Do-Do towards the start of the film, and we think we’ve seen his segment, but then he returns again to aid the white rabbit with the “monster” (aka an enlarged Alice) in his house. Everything Alice was singing about at the beginning of the film as she imagined a world of her own; she talked of the flowers and the animals talking back to her, which incidentally came to pass inside this peculiar world, even it wasn’t quite in the manner she envisaged. Finally, at the end I love that we get a glimpse of everything and everyone she has encountered once again as she runs from the Queen, almost rewinding the whole experience and the little door from the beginning telling her it’s still locked; it’s almost bringing the story to a full circle which is very satisfying for audiences.

I have always loved this film, and will just continue to do – age is just a number after all!!

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