WakenPayne I personally haven't read the books but I have heard they are cleaver social satire and a quintessential children's book as an extremely illogical story. However I do think that while there are good things in this movie there are a lot of problems with it as well. Being that I think everyone knows the plot of "Alice follows Rabbit, tumbles down the rabbit hole and enters a bizarre world" I don't think that's necessary. I will quickly say the good things. Well, I really liked the performance of the girl that played Alice, I think the make-up while you would have to be told the actors are playing them is fantastic as is the set design and the movie is appropriately weird. Okay what's bad? Well The dialogue, I know it's almost lifted from the book (or seemingly) and I know the intention is to be illogical but... I think reading this dialogue would be much better than listening to it and after a while it does get very very annoying. Adding to this I think one of the reasons why this movie can fail is that most of it is just that dialogue and barely anything visually interesting after a while, I know I said the make-up and sets are fantastic and they are but there is really just them talking to Alice after a while. I'd say it is better than it's reputation but then again I still don't think it's that good.

MARIO GAUCI To begin with, this is another title I'd always read about but, frankly, had little hope of ever catching; though its reputation stands more on imposing credentials rather than actual artistic merit, I have to say that I was generally impressed with the results (special mention goes to the beautiful sets). That said, even at a mere 76 minutes (actually reduced from the 90-minute original), the film slightly overstays its welcome following Gary Cooper's belated appearance as the quixotic White Knight. At this stage, I ought to catalogue the other versions I've watched of the Lewis Carroll perennial: 1903 Silent short, 1951 animated Disney feature, 1966 all-star British TV-movie, 1972 musical (with another fine cast) and, soon after the film under review, Jan Svankmajer's celebrated 1988 surreal reworking (review coming up).Charlotte Henry is O.K. in the title role – incidentally, she'd follow this adaptation of a children's classic with the heroine role in another popular fantasy, the Laurel & Hardy version of BABES IN TOYLAND (1934). Here, too, the array of weird characters Alice meets in her dreamworld are played by a roster of Paramount stars from the early Talkie era, a few of whom are forgotten today – most are, in any case, largely obscured by masks. The most notable, of course, are Cary Grant (who even gets to sing and bawl a lot!) – positively weird as the heartbroken Mock Turtle (really a cow in a tortoise shell!), W.C. Fields – grandiose and pompous as ever, thus making for a great Humpty-Dumpty, and Gary Cooper – his trademark handsome features and heroic persona are hidden behind an ageing, balding make-up and an amusingly gawky countenance. Other stars include: Richard Arlen as The Cheshire Cat(!), Sterling Holloway – interestingly, he played The Frog here while providing the voice for The Cheshire Cat itself in the subsequent Disney adaptation, Edward Everett Horton – an ideal Mad Hatter, Roscoe Karns and Jack Oakie as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, May Robson as The Queen Of Hearts, Charlie Ruggles as The March Hare, and Alison Skipworth as The Duchess. It's worth noting that, along with director McLeod and co-scriptwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the film has some nine cast and crew members in common with the famous (and equally rare) compendium IF I HAD A MILLION (1932) and which I actually watched a day previously! Curiously enough, this version of Carroll's children's classic also proved distinguished production designer and occasional director William Cameron Menzies' sole screen writing credit; actually, it combines elements from both "Alice In Wonderland" and "Through The Looking-Glass": for instance, the appearance of the White Rabbit (which introduces the fantasy element in most versions of the tale is moved forward into the narrative here, preferring to use a mirror as passageway into the dreamworld – this change may well have been influenced by Jean Cocteau's THE BLOOD OF A POET [1930]); similarly, the climactic trial is replaced by a wacky banquet scene. By the way, the cartoon story-within-a-story which appears during the Tweedledee and Tweedledum scenes were reportedly made by the Fleischer studio; equally nice are the effects by which Alice is made to shrink (and then grow back) in size in order to get through a very small door – even if the follow-up scene, set inside one of the houses in Wonderland, involving such a device is missing from this particular version. The DivX copy I acquired regrettably suffered from lip-synch problems, so that I had to rewind the film every so often to get it back on track (despite the sheer amount of rare stuff I'm getting via this format, the frustration that goes with it is so great that I'm seriously contemplating giving it up for good…especially since I've still got heaps of these titles to check out).

lugonian ALICE IN WONDERLAND (Paramount, 1933), directed by Norman McLeod, is an interesting screen adaptation to Lewis Carroll's immortal fairy tale mainly for its all-star casting headed by Charlotte Henry in the title role. Although regarded quite faithful to the book, ALICE IN WONDERLAND never achieved the reputation of an immortal motion picture classic as did the better known children's' stories transferred to film, namely Laurel and Hardy's BABES IN TOYLAND (Hal Roach/MGM, 1934) with Charlotte Henry as Bo-Peep; or THE WIZARD OF OZ (MGM, 1939) starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. ALICE IN WONDERLAND did contain more screen adaptations dating back to the silent era than either BABES IN TOYLAND and THE WIZARD OF OZ combined, with the best known "Alice" being the Walt Disney's 1951 animated version. Alice even was paid tribute in a production number scored by Irving Berlin in PUTTIN' ON THE RITZ (UA, 1930) featuring Joan Bennett. This Alice may be noteworthy to some extent but basically a missed opportunity of a great classic.ALICE IN WONDERLAND gets off on a splendid start with its three and a half minute introduction of hand turning the pages of a book, "Alice in Wonderland" and displaying the sketches of characters on one page followed by the faces of actors who play them on another. Opening shot is at an undisclosed location of a two story house being covered by falling snow as Alice (Charlotte Henry), a 12-year-old girl with long blonde hair and ruffled dress, is seen sitting at home along with her governess, Miss Simpson (Ethel Griffies), and pet cat. Bored with nothing to do, she imagines herself going through the mirror, better known as "The looking glass," where she starts her fun-filled fantasy in Wonderland encountering a handful of characters along the way: Uncle Gilbert (Leon Errol) and her Aunt (Patsy O'Byrne); a talking clock (Colin Kenny); The White Rabbit (Richard "Skeets" Gallagher); Mouse (Raymond Hatton); Caterpillar (Ned Sparks); Dodo Bird (Polly Moran); a stuttering Fish (Roscoe Ates); Frog (Sterling Holloway); a cook (Lillian Harmer): the Duchess (Alison Skipworth); the Cheshire Cat (Richard Arlen); the Mad Hatter (Edward Everett Horton); the March Hare (Charles Ruggles); The Dormouse (Jackie Searle); walking play-cards, The Joker (Baby LeRoy); The Queen of Hearts (May Robson who commands "Off with their heads"); the Five of Spades (Charles McNaughton) and The King of Hearts (Alec B. Francis); The Gryphon (William Austin); the crying Mock Turtle (Cary Grant); The Red Queen (Edna May Oliver); Tweedledum (Jack Oakie); Tweedlum (Roscoe Karns); The White King (Ford Sterling), The White Queen (Louise Fazenda); Sheep (Mae Marsh); Humpty Dumpty (W.C. Fields); the accident prone White Knight (Gary Cooper); Plum Pudding (George Ovey); among others before awakening from her dream.With such an impressive cast and imaginative production, how could ALICE IN WONDERLAND miss? The selection of Charlotte Henry was just right (better than Ida Lupino as originally intended at one point), as was W.C. Fields in his five minute segment as Humpty Dumpty. Possibly the weakness is somewhere in the script (by Joseph Mankiewicz) where some scenes hold interest while others do not. The special effects of Alice flying through the air, growing and shrinking in mirror-like effect, quite stunning for its time, while sets by William Cameron Menzies are still quite remarkable. One scene involving a crying baby (Billy Barty) being abused may come off as disturbing, followed by his change into a pig while still squirming in Alice's arms. ALICE IN WONDERLAND at 77 minutes is not an overlong production, though it has indications of being a much longer film since Jacqueline Wells, noted for her role as Alice's sister, is mentioned but not existent in the surviving print. Many top-name stars are virtually unrecognizable in their brief roles, though some of their voices, namely Fields, are unmistakable. While BABES IN TOYLAND and THE WIZARD OF OZ relied on song interludes, interestingly none by Miss Henry. Tunes selected include "Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat" (sung by Edward Everett Horton); "Beautiful Soup" (sung by Cary Grant) "The Warus and the Carpenter" (sung/recited during cartoon segment by Jack Oakie) and "Fill Up the Glasses" (sung by cast). Rarely televised in recent years, there are notable exceptions such as New York City's July 1983 presentation on WNET, Channel 13 (PBS), and June 4, 2001 showing on Turner Classic Movies as part of its star of the month tribute to W.C. Fields. An interesting bit of trivia by TCM host Bob Osborne noting that Mary Pickford was slated to play Alice supported by animated characters. What a worth while Wonderland this might have been! (***)

dbrown-77 This film seems very obscure given its production values and amazing cast - I only came across it while scanning Cary Grant's filmography. It seems mostly lost to time.The film edits together both Alice books into a single narrative (such as it is; the plot remains very episodic). The special effects are still impressive. It made me wonder what the reaction of the public was to this film in 1933 - seems like it would be a major spectacle like the "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" is to present generations.Part of the fun is seeing major stars together in the same movie (Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, W.C. Fields) and being exposed to many other actors who may have been stars in their day and have disappeared from modern memory.