Alice in Wonderland (1951)

This week, we’ve got Alice in Wonderland. It’s hard to say anything that hasn’t already been said. This is one of Disney’s best films and, for a long time, it was a bit of a forgotten classic. AJ will probably mention it, but this movie wasn’t released in the U.S. in it’s full form for twenty years. Luckily, it was rediscovered and we have the pleasure of seeing it now.

Original Poster Sourced via IMDB

Summary: This is an adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The story follows our titular character, Alice, as she wanders through Wonderland, trying to find the white rabbit and return home. In her journey, she meets a lot of kooky characters and deals with a bunch of silly situation. At the end, she ends up at the court of the Queen of Hearts. Alice accidentally makes fun of the Queen and is taken to trial where she is sentenced to death. She flees the court and tries to run home, only to discover that she’s been sleeping the whole time. She wakes up, glad to be out of the strange world of Wonderland and back in the sensible real world.

From a technical standpoint, this movie has got everything on point. This really feels like the first time where Disney got realistic human animation absolutely correct. Cinderella was pretty good, but there were some scenes and shots where she crossed the border of the Uncanny Valley. Alice and her sister, on the other hand, have great human features and they don’t ever really get to the point where her appearance or animation looks inhuman. All the cartoon-ish inhabitants of Wonderland are done well as well, with interesting and memorable designs.

Another place where this movie excels is its music. This movie is chocked full of music and it is all great. Generally, they are adaptations of poems from the book. One of the most memorable is “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” which is basically a really good short that was placed in the middle of this movie. Another favorite of mine is “All in the Golden Afternoon,” but almost any of the songs you hear in this movie are well worth the time they take.

From a thematic standpoint, I feel that some of the subtleties of the plot are lost in both the adaptation from the original book, as well as the separation from the time the book was written. Basically, it seems, every interaction that Alice has is a parody of sorts of normal social interaction. The subtlety is with the society it’s parodying, as it seems to be making a point about Victorian British society. As such, it’s hard to understand some things, but I feel that most of the film is still relatable.

At the beginning of the film, Alice basically says that she wants to go to a world where “Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would.” Its implied that Wonderland is such a world. When she falls in to Wonderland, she seeming falls through the middle of the earth and flips upside down; literally becoming topsy-turvy. From here on, she keeps running into situations which are supposed to be the opposite of how people treat each other; the satire is that the relate to ways people actual treat each other, meaning the real world is the opposite of how it should be.

One of the first things she runs into is the Caucus Race, a parody of the political world with all the candidates running in circles trying to get dry, while the Dodo remains dry standing above them. All the while, he tells them to keep running in the Caucus Race. Likewise, the flowers in the garden seem to be a comment on social interaction, with all the flowers shunning Alice because of physical features she lacks, not realizing she’s something different than them. Soon after, she runs into the Caterpillar, a comment on education, whose pontificating and philosophizing leaves her with many more questions than she starts with. There’s the teaparty, a comment on etiquette and the crazy rules of polite society. The Mad Hatter and the March Hare have an everlasting teaparty to celebrate the Unbirthday, which seems to make a comment that people just make up reasons to have celebrations so they can have parties. 

This all comes to a head when Alice comes to the Queen’s court, where Alice has to deal with crazy social rules, a kangaroo court, and perhaps the biggest non-sequitur; everyone listens to a “fat, pompous, bad tempered old tyrant” and kill others at her request. Obviously, this seems to be a scathing criticism of the British monarchy. In modern times, the monarchy seems to be a joke, but when the book was originally written, the queen had a lot more influence over her nation.

All in all, this was a good movie. Almost everything in this movie is just fantastic. The only problem I could name is that the end seems to fall apart, like they didn’t know how to finish the film. Overall, though, the movie comes together and it really is a joy to watch. Join us next week for Peter Pan, another movie based off a British work of fiction.

-CJ

This week we took a look into Alice in Wonderland (1951). I would certainly say this is one of the most memorable films out of the core full length Disney features, and I’d also say this would be Disney’s first full musical. Alice in Wonderland is a really well done film, but upon it’s initial release it turned out to be one of Disney’s disasters.

Walt had wanted to make Alice in Wonderland and had planned to do so starting in the 1930’s, but due to cuts, and the eventual war it was scrapped. Alice had originally been planed out as full live action, then half action half animation, until it was picked up again in the 1940’s, where it was decided that it would be a fully animated movie. Alice in Wonderland actually had a very bad start when it first hit theaters. It was premiered in London and New York City, where it received a lukewarm reception. Due to this, Walt refused to re-release the film theatrically. It did premier on ABC television in 1954, but the entire movie was edited down to less than one hour. The movie itself is 75 minutes long, so chances are there were 20 to 40 minutes edited out of the entire film.

Alice did go on to gain some popularity in the 1970’s. There were several sold out showings in college campuses that led to the movie getting a new theatrical release in 1974. The film was marketed more as a “psychedelic film” and used Jefferson Airplanes “White Rabbit” as a marketing tool in their adds. This is where Alice actually gained the majority of its attention. The film did better with this release, and actually gained a re-release in London.

Alice in Wonderland is one of the best films animation wise that we’ve reviewed. I know I say that on all Disney films, but this one holds especially true. The level of detail, and style applied to this movie is incredibly well done. There’s only a few areas where the styling of the 1940’s shorts hold over, but other than that, it feels like a fully classic Disney film.

With that said, let’s look at the finer points of what makes this movie so interesting starting with Alice. Alice is our main point of focus in this movie, and with that all the detail is applied to her. She’s incredibly emotional, with how quickly her facial expressions change and move. This is easily one of the main reasons it’s easy to get in touch with our main character. When looking back at Cinderella expressions were a bit washed out, and at times, seemed static. However, Alice shows us a wide range of emotion, from concern, to sadness, to resolve all within a few minutes of us watching her on screen.

There’s a lot of this shown specifically in her eyes. Alice has darker eyebrows than Cinderella, and therefore it’s easy to see if she’s upset, or surprised, even if she’s far out of the frame. There’s more detail in the eyes as well, they’re bigger, and more expressive this way, and there’s also line work above the eye. This helps to keep the shape of the eye on screen, so we can draw that emotional line, even with her eyes closed.

Backgrounds and foregrounds are well done in this film, and there’s a great subtlety of how they change over time as well. When Alice first starts off her journey, everything is very realistic. The blades of grass all have fine details in them, and the layering of the back grounds is done in such a way, that it feels to obvious that we’re in a rich England countryside. However, as we progress into wonderland, things start changing. Colors become more muted, or more intense. We start getting whimsical details on leaves, and other stand out objects. It’s not until Alice shrinks and is among the flowers and the caterpillar that things really take a turn. Blade of grass now have intricate or simple whirls, and zig-zaged patterns on them. The colors go from greens and blues to tans, grays, and weird purples. It seems like it should be an over obvious change, but the way it’s done is very subtlety.

Action and movement is another real key point to this film. Even when our characters may not have a big grin slapped on their face, their movements can still give us an idea of how their feeling. Lets take for example, Alice in the White Rabbits home. She starts growing after taking a bite of cookie, and the viewer gets to see just how uncomfortable this must be. Her head is jammed into the roof of the house, her arms are stuck out of the windows, and one leg is out the front door. She tries to lift part of the house up so she can have more room to move, but finds it impossible. Even though we can’t see Alice, we can find that she’s trying to find other ideas, when she goes to scratch her head, but instead scratches the top of the straw roof. It’s a great way to lend some character to the situation even though we can’t see her face.

There’s an absolute ton of music here, when compared to Cinderella. Cinderella had three or four songs in it, but with Alice we’re treated to six or seven songs. The songs themselves are one of the more memorable parts of this film, with “Painting the Roses Red,” “The Walrus and The Carpenter” and “Very Good Advice,” I do wonder if Disney had written some of these songs for a live action feature, since we really don’t see this many musical pieces until we hit The Jungle Book in 1967.

I really have nothing, but praise for this film. I really feel that Disney found their calling with their animation here. It fixes brushing the lines of the uncanny valley with adding more cartoony detail, instead of straight realism. The voice acting is very well done, and there’s really nothing to complain about here.

The one small complain I do have, is that there’s a jarring sequence when Alice is in the caterpillars garden, and takes a bite out of one of the mushrooms, and grows into some trees. We’re given a re-looped sequence for a few seconds, that jars the viewer out of this kind of complacent mental state. However this is fixed in it’s own way with the backgrounds changing to a more normalized state, before sinking back into the more chaotic and abstract.

It’s quite sad that this film received as much initial dislike as it did. It really is a stunning piece of work, and even though it doesn’t match the classic story, it’s still very well done. It’s easy to follow, it’s fun, bright and cheery, and there’s a lot going for it. Everything form the music to the animation is spot on here, and it really deserves more praise. Alice's voice actor and model will return next week with our next review of Disney’s Peter Pan.

-AJ

Bonus: Walt did make a Micky Mouse short called Thru the Mirror in 1936. I do wonder if this short was a prototype to see if an Alice in Wonderland film would do well. If you’d like to view it, you can find it here: