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 "The Wednesday Play" Alice in Wonderland (1966)


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21 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
Bizarre, 3 May 2004
Author: Ephraim Gadsby from USA

Working with a shoestring budget director Jonathan Miller was able to persuade an impressive cast (Peter Sellers, Sir Michael Redgrave, Sir John Gielgud, Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, Michael Gough, Wilfred Brambell, Wilfred Lawson, Leo McKern, Malcolm Muggeridge, Finlay Currie) to make cameo appearances in his BBC production of "Alice in Wonderland". The results are mixed, with some bright spots (especially the few improvisations Miller left in).

Miller dresses his cast like Victorians, rather than making them look like animals (after all, he says in his commentary, the typical way of doing Alice is to take big stars and then cover them up with animal heads so you can't see who they are).

He takes the book literally. For instance, the Hatter and the March Hare are mad in a real way rather than the typically overblown cartoonish way. Peter Cook's Hatter is soft-spoken, laughing and agreeable, his lines always sounding like non sequiturs; while Michael Gough's March Hare is defensive, suspicious, and genuinely troubling.

The best scene, which probably best captures what Miller was working for, was Muggeridge's Gryphon and Gielgud's Mock Turtle. The fey White Rabbit of Wilfred Brambell ("A Hard Day's Night") is a delight. Peter Sellers, appearing all too briefly, has an amusing bit of business (Miller in his commentary doesn't like it but it suits the scene admirably and in this case Sellers the slapstick authority knew what he was doing better than the director -- the scene cries out for what he does). Michael Redgrave is phenomenal in his all-too-brief turn as the caterpillar, but the scene is damaged by truncating the poem "You are Old, Father William" to the point that it makes no sense on any level. Peter Cook's Hatter is engaging at first but his one-note madness is quickly tiresome. More interesting at the tea party is Wilfred Lawson's Door Mouse (watch his hands -- he knows his business); and Michael Gough ("Batman"), who has an aura of danger.

The pros in the cast all do their best, and no fault can be found with the big-name stars who are doing good work for peanuts.

Miller's concept of Alice is the primary reason the film ultimately doesn't work. The girl he chose as Alice has a very interesting face, and is wonderfully untraditional. Sometimes her delivery (heard half in voice-over and half in dialog) shows promise. But Miller, probably to accentuate the dreamlike fixation, has her walk through the movie like a somnambulist, not becoming involved. The little emoting he does allow is almost always to show Alice's rudeness. For the most part her facial expression is fixed and unengaged, and this is Miller's fault.

The cutting from scene to scene is abrupt. Part of this is probably Miller's continued obsession with the working of dreams, and partly because a lot of transitional material was cut out at the request of the bigwigs to make the show move faster. And because Miller is quite literal with Carroll, he makes the mad tea party actually have the monotonous languor of people trapped in a long afternoon tea that will never stop -- and it becomes tedious.

Oddly, on the DVD, far better than the movie is the director's audio track. Jonathan Miller gives a full 80 minute's description of what he tried to do (and what price limitations left him able to do); and when the movie is seen in that light, it makes a lot more sense. Sometimes Miller explains why things were done, sometimes he desperately tries to justify what was done. In all cases, his commentary is interesting and he never falls into the trap of describing what's going on, but always why it's going on.

The movie looks good, and individual turns by actors are superb, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

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15 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Alternative 'Alice', 4 October 2004
Author: Eugene Kim (gene_kim@earthlink.net) from Arlington, Virginia, USA

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.

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12 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
Curiouser and Wonderfully Curiouser!, 25 November 2003
Author: krzykra from Dallas, Tx

Alice in Wonderland is one of the most astounding works of literature. It has therefore inspired many entertainers to do many different variations of Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass.

Jonathan Miller's BBC version is extremely different from most adaptations of Alice, especially the Disney version (which is not really the most accurate portrayal of Lewis Carroll's logically illogical world). Miller evokes a rather haunting and surrealistic Victorian dreamworld filled with stuffy grown-ups numbly adhering to propriety and social etiquette. Alice is lost in this landscape, trying to find herself and trying to understand the process of growing up.

This variation is clearly more suitable for adults, since the mood is darker and none of the characters have any makeup at all. But the cast is excellent, with appearances by such legends as Sir Michael Redgrave, Sir John Gielgud, and Peter Sellers. Anne-Marie Mallik portrays a more sullen Alice but is perfect for this version of Wonderland.

A unique and artistic production- a must for Alice fans who like to see Lewis Carroll in all forms!

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12 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland is a masterpiece., 11 November 2005
10/10
Author: jeremiahclayton-1 from New York

There have been several films that attempted to bring the viewer into the dream of Lewis Carroll's Alice.. but none have succeeded like Jonathan Miller's 1966 BBC Alice in Wonderland. A legendary cast.. without costumes.. improvises Lewis Carroll's work with an unsettling brilliance. The result is a film that casts a new light.. or shadow.. on a story beloved by millions. A dark environment both in aesthetics and passion.. Jonathan Miller recreates Alice's dream into a nightmare. One that doesn't allow the viewer to get comfortable unless they can accept the evil undercurrent that moves the story forward.. or backwards. The film is cast with many legends of the screen and stage.. all of whom provide performances worthy of the legend accolade. The character of Alice is represented differently than in traditional adaptations. She seems almost removed from the "reality" taking place before her.. even at times when she is involved in the "reality" as much as the characters of her dream-world. Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland for BBC television is a must-see for anyone who enjoyed Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass or anyone who enjoys low budget films that are improvised into timeless masterpieces.

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7 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
A Dream of a Film, Perfectly Judged, 5 January 2008
10/10
Author: robert-temple-1 from United Kingdom

Seeing this again after some years only made me appreciate it the more. It is thoroughly inspired, and a true work of genius by Jonathan Miller, who both produced and directed. His interpretation of the famous Lewis Carroll story is as a summer daydream. As the flies buzz, Alice drifts off to sleep on the grass, perspiring in the sun, and the visions begin. Many of her comments are given in confidential whispers, as befits a dream rather than a real drama. She rarely looks at anyone during the action, mostly tending to stare into space as if she were sleep-walking. This studied approach is successful at conveying the intended unreality of the story. It is set very firmly in Victorian times, with perfect costumes and suitably mannered behaviour by all the actors for the period. Miller uses the film to expose the hidden agenda of Carroll's fantasy, which was to use surrealist humour to attack the pomposities, bigotry, and hypocrisies of Victorian Church, state, manners, and society. (It is not for nothing that the Surrealists of Paris later adopted Lewis Carroll as their direct predecessor and Louis Aragon even translated 'Through the Looking Glass' into French.) Miller, with his wide circle of acquaintance, was able to assemble a huge number of famous actors to play cameos throughout this film. Peter Sellers was content to be the King of Hearts, Michael Redgrave was a haughty caterpillar, Leo McKern was dressed in drag as the Duchess, with a pig wrapped in swaddling clothes in his arms, and Miller's former colleagues in 'Beyond the Fringe', Peter Cook (as the Mad Hatter) and Alan Bennett (the latter of whom is still his neighbour directly across the street), were drafted in, ably supported by John Bird, old character actor Finlay Currie (as the Dodo), and a brilliant appearance by Wilfred Lawson as the Dormouse. Michael Gough is a very fine March Hare. Particularly inspired is the sequence at the seashore with Sir John Gielgud and Malcolm Muggeridge as the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon respectively. Muggeridge was not an actor, but a noted broadcaster and author, and his choice was especially inspired. At the time this went out during the Christmas season of 1966, the viewers were divided between those who loved it and those who hated it. The latter mostly had their expectations disappointed, because they thought 'Alice' should be portrayed in a more conventional way, and that what Miller did was some form of sacrilege. (A hysterical over-reaction, if ever there were one!) Miller has always had a tendency to be shockingly innovative in his interpretations (perhaps most of all in his television version of Shakespeare's 'Timon of Athens'). Miller's only commercial feature film, 'Take a Girl Like You' (1970), was not a success, and a large number of people savagely envious of his brilliance and versatility were delighted to seize upon that and stop him entering the film world. He has always had the most astonishing number of bitter enemies. People say he snaps at them. I have only ever known him to be charming and delightful. Who can say? It is all a mystery to me. But this particular achievement in black and white film will live forever, truly it will.

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11 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Jonathan Miller spins a surrealistic yawn, 16 July 2005
7/10
Author: Clark Richards from United States

Jonathan Miller's version of "Alice In Wonderland" is at times both very beautiful to watch and somehow mildly boring to sit through. Boring perhaps because of the detached performance of Anne-Marie Mallik who plays Alice. Jonathan Miller has Mallik play Alice as a girl who watches her own dream fantasy of 'Wonderland' from the outside of the looking glass rather than someone who has gone through the looking glass. It's almost as if Alice knows that she's dreaming and is able to control her own dreams, yet is somehow bored and barely amused with the dream world she has created. Mallick walks through 'Wonderland' as a somnambulist chaser. Transitions from scene to scene include drowsy dissolves or close ups of Mallick in all of her hair brushed beauty staring away from the camera. Large sections of Mallik's dialog are heard by way of voice over while the other actors work around her silence acting in the gaps.

One of "Alice's" strengths is in the rest of the compiled cast. There are some very good performances, most notably Wilfred Brambell as the White Rabbit, John Gielgud as the Mock Turtle, Peter Cook as the Mad Hatter and Michael Gough as the March Hare and of course, Peter Sellers as the King of Hearts. It's too bad that with the two most brilliant comedic minds of the mid 1960's, that of Peter Sellers and Peter Cook, that more freedom wasn't given to explore the comic possibilities these two could give to the story. But having this comedic freedom was not to be part of Miller's vision. Miller describes on the audio commentary of the DVD his dislike for two ad-libs provided by Cook and Sellers. Apparently because of the tight shooting schedule, there wasn't any time for lengthy re-shoots of the two ad-libs that made it into the final cut. Thank goodness for small compromises, I would hate to think of anything Sellers or Cook did on film that would be lost to the cutting room floor.

Even though Jonathan Miller's artistic resume up until the release of this film could boast of a man steeped in the comedic tradition of the Cambridge Footlights and the ground breaking satirical group 'Beyond The Fringe', his version of "Alice In Wonderland" surprisingly finds itself mostly miles away from humor. However, what it lacks in humor it makes up for in the haunting sitar backing music by Ravi Shankar.

This isn't a bad movie, just terribly frustrating and surprisingly boring at times. The good news is that it's only an hour long. This is a trip you should take; just don't get your hopes up too high.

For fans of Monty Python, look for Eric Idle in the choir near the end of the film. He appears at around the 58-minute mark.

7/10 Clark Richards

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Alice in Chunderland, 28 September 2008
8/10
Author: Professor Klickberg from Los Angeles

"Who am I?" asks a shabbily dressed, scruffy-haired incarnation of Lewis Carroll's immemorial little girl lost. Of course, the answer's come in various forms ever since such cinematic endeavors as Cecil Hepworth's "Alice in Wonderland," made in 1903 (at 12 minutes, the longest British film of the day; Cecil, you'll remember, two years later made the world's first "dog star" with his monumentally successful "Rescued by Rover," which was shown so many times that the celluloid literally deteriorated, forcing the filmmakers to completely "re-produce" it two more times; his "Alice in Wonderland," unfortunately, did not boast such a success, and thus all we have today is something that looks as though it tumbled down the rabbit hole one too many times). But enough of this sluice at the bottom of the March Hare's treacle well, eh?

Made for the BBC's The Wednesday Play television series, Jonathan Miller's take on the subject matter is, as is traditionally the case, a unique one. With a budget approximating nothing more than his usual "taped stage plays" for which he previously gained great renown (think preter-PBS), Miller decided to illustrate what Alice would have gone through had all of her nonsensical dreams been steeped in the quotidian reality of her ordinary life. There are no talking birds, no storytelling mock turtles, no dormice living in teacups. In fact, short of a crude cut-out superimposition of a very ordinary looking "Cheshire cat" flying in the sky (a la the Teletubbies' eerily omniscient baby in the sun), there's really no special effects or anything that would evince this one of being the least bit chimerical…

… that is, unless you know the story of Alice in Wonderland already. Ostensibly, what Miller is doing here is showing us the curious, towheaded girl's "adventures" set in a world where people merely sound like birds and look like supine caterpillars sitting loftily back in their Victorian chairs and wondering aloud, "Who are you?" Imagine Wizard of Oz, but without all the costumes, flying monkeys, and mercurial trees pulling at the heroine's hair.

Suddenly, we along with Alice find ourselves in a land where we were already (that is, of course, if we were a haughty 11-year-old girl wandering lackadaisically through our castellated house in the late 19th century). What we see is the "reality" of the dreamworld of Alice's waking life.

And this is exactly what Miller captures in this version of the epic "children's" tale for stoners and mathematicians. In fact, the only real sense of "dreamland" we can extract from Miller's vision is a kind of proto-Gilliam realm of canted camera angles and unsettling juxtapositions of close-up faces in deep-focus environments (think Brazil or particularly Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, which clearly owes both its visual and aural style to Mr. Miller). Truthfully, after watching this late 60's stark, black-and-white opus (if ever so disjointed and flawed), one would have to assume that Terry Gilliam took much of his artistic sensibility from what is definitely far more than a simple made-for-TV broadcast.

With a quadrille of British mainstays—Peter Cook as the Mad Hatter, Sir John Gielgud as the Mock Turtle, Alan Bennett as the Mouse, an uncredited Eric Idle, and the King of Hearts himself, Peter Sellers—Jonathan Miller, with lilting, ethereal score by Ravi Shankar, does what no other director has done to date with this timeless urtext: he shows us what would have happened had Alice stayed awake during her infamous tour through dreamland.

PS: If this one doesn't do it for you, try out Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer's nightmarish Alice (1988), which must be the most haunting adaptation of Alice's adventures yet put on celluloid.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Peter Cook Is By Far The Best Of All The Hatters', 17 April 2010
10/10
Author: johnstonjames from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This is probably the most superior of all the adaptations of 'Alice'. I didn't say the most fun or has the best gimmicks, but it's probably the most intelligent and erudite of them all.

Director Jonathan Miller hired cinematographer Dick Bush(yea i know,ha ha)to film this BBC TV production in 35mm B&W, using deep focus,wide angle cinematography, a technology that is usually associated with theatrical features. The result is probably the best filmed 'Alice' of them all.

The Mad Hatter's tea party is probably the best here out of the dozen or more versions I have seen. It's done without corny special effect gimmicks, no overt slapstick, and no cute little songs. It's just done with subtlety and understatement. The resulting effect is probably the maddest,craziest,and funniest of all the tea parties put on film. Peter Cook is without a doubt the funniest and best of all Hatters I have seen, and I've pretty much seen all of them. He really seems like a man gone mad. And not a sweet madness like Johnny Depp, but a very disturbing kind of madness.He is also the most sophisticated in his portrayal.

This is one of the most faithful adaptations. The only real flaw being that the Caterpillar is not smoking a hookah. The reason is obviously because it was made for TV at the time and that would have bothered censors.

As far as a work of cinema goes, it's beautiful and it's perfect. It has a offbeat sensibility about it that echoes the Richard Lester films of that period. This is a true masterpiece.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Lazing on a sunny afternoon in the summertime in 1862/1966, 31 December 2008
8/10
Author: Gary170459 from Derby, UK

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.

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
This adaptation is very surreal and very dreamlike!, 14 July 2007
10/10
Author: P. H. from United Kingdom

I'm just writing to disagree with previous comment which complained about Alice's dialogue /expressions not matching upto accepted conversational practices. I think it's obvious that the whole mesmeric quality of this version was intended to portray how things disjointedly happen when you are actually dreaming. Sometimes, you are just observing the bizarre things going on around you (when dreaming)and your thoughts may contact other figures who are there even if your mouth isn't actually doing anything.

Basically, when dreaming anything can happen, so to knock this adaptation because it wasn't made like any other prog' following conventional methods is pretty crass.

If you want a pretty accurate portrayal of what a dream 'could' look like on the screen then this is a very good attempt. Also, to get all these seasoned players together in one film is a fine achievement-Peter Cook steels the show for me!

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