Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Alice stumbles into the world of Wonderland. Will she get home? Not if the Queen of Hearts has her way.

Directors:

Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson

Writers:

Lewis Carroll (adaptation) (as Lewis Carrol), Winston Hibler (story)

Stars:

Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kathryn Beaumont	...	Alice (voice)
Ed Wynn	...	Mad Hatter (voice)
Richard Haydn	...	Caterpillar (voice)
Sterling Holloway	...	Cheshire Cat (voice)
Jerry Colonna	...	March Hare (voice)
Verna Felton	...	Queen of Hearts (voice)
J. Pat O'Malley	...	Walrus / Carpenter / Dee / Dum (voice) (as Pat O'Malley)
Bill Thompson	...	White Rabbit / Dodo (voice)
Heather Angel	...	Alice's Sister (voice)
Joseph Kearns	...	Doorknob (voice)
Larry Grey	...	Bill (voice)
Queenie Leonard	...	Bird in the Tree (voice)
Dink Trout	...	King of Hearts (voice)
Doris Lloyd	...	The Rose (voice)
James MacDonald	...	Dormouse (voice)

Storyline

Alice is a daydreaming young girl. She finds learning poems and listening to literature boring. She prefers stories with pictures and to live inside her imagination. One day, while enduring just such a poetry reading, she spots a large white rabbit...dressed in a jacket and carrying a large watch. He scurries off, saying he's late, for a very important date. She follows him through the forest. He then disappears down a rabbit hole. Alice follows, leading her to all manner of discoveries, characters and adventures.

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Plot Keywords:

rabbit | cat | dream | sudden change in size | cheshire cat | 

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Taglines:

'Tis Brillig...'Tis Brilliant...'Tis Out of This World!

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Genres:

Animation | Adventure | Family | Fantasy | Musical

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Certificate:

G

Details

Official Sites:

official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

14 September 1951 (USA)

Also Known As:

Alice in Wonderland

Filming Locations:

Walt Disney Studios, 500 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$3,000,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$5,232,000, 31 December 1951

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

75 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

When Walt Disney started working to create his film version of Alice in the 1940s, his original choice for the role was Ginger Rogers. He instead settled on child actress Kathryn Beaumont.

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Goofs

During "The Walrus and the Carpenter", the appearance of the walrus' eyes is inconsistent between shots. Some shots have just little black dot eyes, while some shots have him with full pupils and colored eyes.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Alice's sister: [reading from a history book] "... leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand..." Alice.
[camera zooms out to show Alice sitting in a tree, playing with Dinah and making a crown of daisies]
Alice: Hmm? Oh, I'm listening.
Alice's sister: "And even Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury, agreed to meet with William and offer him the crown. William's conduct at first was moderate."
[...]

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Alternate Versions

In the French version, when she first drinks from the bottle, the label has been re-lettered as "Bouvez moi", but when it falls to the ground the original "Drink me" is visible.

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Connections

Referenced in Batman: The Animated Series: Mad as a Hatter (1992)

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Soundtracks

March of the Cards
(1951) (uncredited)
Written by Bob Hilliard and Sammy Fain

User Reviews

Timeless magic of warped genius.

Most films age over time. In 20 years will Titanic still be as amazing as it was in 1998? Will Jurassic Park still have people gawping open mouthed at the cinema screen? I think not. Its a rarity, but sometimes, just sometimes, there comes a movie that is timeless, magical and eternal, one such film is Alice in Wonderland.

It seems to me, when watching most Disney films, that Walt Disney had an evil masterplan to mess with the minds of children, young and old. Dumbo is a film about an outsider, Pinocchio is a film about a freak child who cannot stop lying. Walt only made these films family viewing through constantly having a moral ending. Dumbo can fly and Pinocchio is rewarded for risking his life to save another, however, these moral endings do not disguise the fact that, at times, Disney films were quite peculiar.

Alice in Wonderland on the surface is a dreamlike fantasy about a child nodding off and visiting a wonderful wonderland where flowers sing, caterpillars smoke and rabbits talk. However, similarly to Blue Velvet, this film is not about the surface values, its is about the dark, seedy undertones that exist beneath the aesthetic surface.

Below its surface lies a wealth of wholly unlikeable and unhelpful creatures. Aside from the King (Hooray) of Hearts, each character only serves to hinder Alice in her attempts to come to terms with her warped dream. The Cheshire Cat is responsible for putting Alice in court, the White Rabbit wants to have Alice destroyed when he finds her at his home, the flowers shun Alice when they incorrectly perceive her to be a common garden weed, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare also shun Alice for no reason whatsoever, this list is as long as the tunnel that leads Alice into her Wonderland.

To look back at the film nowadays, one could surmount that the ending is nothing more than a cop-out (these thoughts were true for Lynch's Boxing Helena). She dreamt it all along is nothing more than saying, here, we'll give you licence to create a magical world, no boundaries because it all exists inside a young girls mind.

I'll admit this review might seem overly critical of the film, but it is for these warped reasons and the context of what the film represents or least what it should represent that I absolutely adore it. Walt Disney might have had a masterplan to screw with the minds of his children, but I say, good luck to him. A subtle undertone to the magical shell of the movie shows that the yolk is in fact sour. I daren't but will compare this movie to Adrian Lyne's Jacob's Ladder, another film about a false surface level and the warped undertones of life and death.

Sleep is only a state of mind, it's what happens in this state of mind that really matters. Or at least, what mattered to Walt.

Classic.