TheLittleSongbird
Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are classic stories, oddball and fairly difficult to adapt but colourful and quite magical. As a child my favourite adaptations were this and the Disney film(the first one I saw), and re-watching this 2-part version again it still is a favourite. It's not perfect, not all the casting(a vast majority do) and songs(maligned but not that bad, more hit and miss) work, and while the faithfulness to the stories is very admirable and pays off very well often some scenes can drag as a result of being a little too faithful.The sets are very colourful and designed lovingly, with a mix of eeriness when down the rabbit hole and sumptuous colour with the Flower Garden. If there was a choice between in the Alice in Wonderland half and the Through the Looking Glass half, marginal preferences would go to Through the Looking Glass, the visuals are more vivid and the characters a little kookier. Some of the more memorable performances of the whole adaptation are in Through the Looking Glass too, and the pacing is a little more secure. The costumes are rather weird- Cheshire Cat, Bill the Lizard, the Oysters and Dodo Bird were among the worst cases. But the ones for Alice, White Knight, Red Queen and Queen of Hearts are very appropriate and there is a soft spot for White Rabbit's too. The atmosphere is a great mix of eerie, oddball, funny, whimsical and colourful.And the dialogue is clever, faithful in spirit to the story, some of it is literally lifted out of the pages of the book(s). You do wish that the Mock Turtle's melancholic poem was left intact though. In regard to the story, it is mostly very well-adapted though a bit draggy in spots. Of individual scenes, faring best are the Mad Hatter tea party, the train scene, the Old Father William musical number, the trial, Jam Tomorrow, Jam Yesterday, the touching We Are Dancing and Emotions numbers and of course the first appearance of the Jabberwocky(as a child that was terrifying, and even to a 21-year old it was scary). The ending is also a tear-jerker. Some scenes didn't fare so well, I don't remember a single thing about the scene with the Mouse, Dodo and Lory Bird, the Caterpillar scene would have fared better with the whole thing about the mushrooms(it did seem a little pointless), the Lion and the Unicron scene is awkwardly staged and Ernest Borgnine seemed ill at ease and the Walrus and the Carpenter number is fun but suffers from cheap costuming.Which brings us onto the songs and casting. The background scoring and orchestrations are excellent and beautifully done, the Overtures over the opening credits show real promise and the creepiness and whimsy that pulsates the scoring throughout are used most effectively. The songs have been maligned, and in a way understandably. There are some good ones, though some suffer from being too brief or too samey. The best way to describe the songs are hit-and-miss. The hits were Old Father William(with choreography that seemed to be paying homage to Shirley Temple); There's No Way Home is a beautiful song and sung in a way that is a mix of vocally understated Frank Sinatra and Burl Ives; the very poignant We Ae Dancing with some of the best visuals of the adaptation; the intimidating Off With their Heads and the riotous Jam Tomorrow, Jam Yesterday. There are a few misses though, I Hate Dogs and Cats is probably the most forgettable song in all senses in the entire adaptation; There's Something to Say as well as being quite badly sung is no better; Laugh is rather dull despite Anthony Newley's singing; Lion and the Unicorn is a tad repetitive and Nonsense lacks irony, is not as poignant as Caroll's Mock Turtle poem in the book and is somewhat contradictory too.Most of the acting is fine, but like with the songs some don't work. Shelley Winters, John Stamos and Donald O'Connor are wasted; Donna Mills is competent if unmemorable; Telly Salavas is too sympathetic for Cheshire Cat; Scott Biao performs with no real feeling or understanding of his few lines; Beau Bridges is a somewhat effeminate Unicorn; Ernest Borgnine looked uncomfortable as the Lion and Jonathan Winters is rather dull as Humpty Dumpty. Natalie Gregory however is a very endearing Alice, carrying the adaptation very well and charmingly and with spunk. The cast are like a Who's Who and it's really fun to spot. These were the performers that stood out. Sammy Davis Jnr plays Caterpillar with great personality and firmness and still is a great singer and dancer, the White Rabbit of Red Buttons is suitably jittery, Carol Channing is a riot as the White Queen, Robert Morley's King of Hearts is probably definitive, Lloyd Bridge's White Knight is chivalrous and meaningful, Jayne Meadows is a genuinely intimidating Queen of Hearts and Ann Jillian's Red Queen is performed with real gusto and menace(she also sings Emotions wonderfully).And we also have Ringo Starr's melancholic Mock Turtle, Jack Warden's Wise Owl, Karl Malden's stuffy Walrus, Harvey Korman's imposing White King, Anthony Newley's very funny Mad Hatter, Arte Johnson's nervous Doormouse and Roddy McDowell's twitchy March Hare. In fact, while some like Patrick Duffy, Sally Struthers and Pat Morita are merely cameo appearances, the acting is good enough. Tweedledum and Tweedledee are great fun too, and isn't that Jabberwocky scary or what? Overall, along with Disney's it is one of the best adaptations of the book and is the most faithful to the book(s), Nick Willing's 1999 adaptation is faithful too. 8/10 Bethany Cox
Foux_du_Fafa
I remember seeing this version of Alice in Wonderland as quite a young child (around six) and thought that it was fantastic. Having passed the 20 mark, I decided to look at it again, and I regret doing so. Not that it tarnished any sentimental childhood memories; I honestly felt that I wasted my time. Aside from perhaps some cheap direct-to-video animated versions, this probably ranks as the worst adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" I have ever seen. It comes across like some blind attempt at creating a latter-day "Wizard of Oz" or "Mary Poppins", and it completely fails.It at least annoys me that they didn't get a British Alice, but some cutesy American girl. Even Walt Disney, king of Americanisation, understood that Alice should be portrayed by a British actress. A contrived attempt at depicting Alice's nationality comes from a single framed picture of Queen Victoria hanging up on the wall in her house at the beginning.In any case, the story progresses in the traditional manner: a girl named Alice follows a white rabbit down a mysterious hole and into a strange fantasyland home to the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts and other funnies. "Through the Looking Glass" is also featured, linked to the Wonderland sections by an encounter with the Jabberwock. With practically all the characters invented by Carroll appearing, many of them often ignored by other filmmakers, you might be mistaken for thinking that, despite an American Alice, this adaptation is pretty faithful. This is hardly the case, however, as the tone of the original is alarmingly distorted.Anybody who is familiar with Lewis Carroll's original books will remember "Alice in Wonderland" being anarchic, rarely sentimental in the traditional sense and above all means not didactic. Equally, the best adaptations, from the 1966 BBC film to theDisney classic, don't necessarily follow the original narrative completely; they instead re-interpret the material but stay true to the overall tone to achieve their own filmic equivalent. This version of "Alice in Wonderland", however, comes across more as a wannabe "Wizard of Oz" intent, and tones down the original's anarchy into a moralising story about Alice growing up so that she can have tea with the grown-ups. The characters, many of them sadly played by a good number of normally talented actors and actresses, will suddenly jump from acting somewhat akin to the grotesque verse-reciting loonies of Carroll into behaving like creations bent on teaching how Alice can mature. Moreover, they usually do so through horrible songs. The use of the Jabberwock as a personification of Alice's childhood fears is equally as stupid, as is the constant use of artificial thrill moments and cheesy science-fiction sound effects. In fact, the production values on the whole are pretty dire. The sets seem lifeless and go overboard on fake plants. Most of the costumes look like they were hired from a fancy-dress shop, and, some of them look like they were made by six-year olds. For example, the Jabberwock looks like he's made of latex, and the oysters from "The Walrus and the Carpenter" look like people who got stuck in beach party props.I understand that there are thousands of Americans out there who adore this version on the grounds of nostalgia, and by no means am I trying to wreck their childhood memories by trashing this film. However, as far as everyone else is concerned, I'd say that it's best worth avoiding. From every point of view, it's well and truly a bad, tacky, dated piece of fluff.
renkiohen
Its been beautiful to hear what seems to be the theme of my generation's experience with this film: "My mom/dad/grandma/grandpa taped this film when i was little/unborn and it glued me to the TV for all three hours of it." This was exactly how I experienced it and I feel nothing but gratitude to my parents for taping it and thus giving me the opportunity to watch it again and again and again...even though it TERRIFIED me! Somehow that didn't stop me from indulging in repeat viewings (my parents say I watched it incessantly). Of course, as I got older, I stopped watching it. But just recently I was shocked to find it in my hands as a DVD (my girlfriend heard me speak fondly of it and got it for me as an early x-mas present). Since then I've found myself wrapped in a myriad of awe, nostalgia, and even tears as childhood loves and fears have come flooding back to me because of this film. It's a riveting and beautiful story for children, but for adults who really listen its a treasure chest of wisdom. Buy this film for your kids and for yourself. It's enriched my life as both a child and an adult.
