Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910) User Reviews

Edison Joins in On the Fun

[PCC0921 · 6/10 · 27 February 2023]

This is the second, known Alice film, ever to be seen in movie theaters. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910), starts out well and then the quality begins to drop, as the plot moves along. There is a reason for this though. It was something, that made the Alice films more of a special effects driven story, than a story found in the literary nonsense genre of literature. This is an Edison production and it is the first American version of Alice in Wonderland. The director, Edwin S. Porter, who brought us the legendary, the Great Train Robbery (1903), brings this adaptation to theatrical life.

What afflicts this film the most, is the same problem, that troubled the 1903 film. Being a silent production, a lot of Alice's story and the characters she meets, can't be used, because these aspects of the story are heavily driven by dialogue. It was a problem that plagued the Alice silent film attempts of the pre-sound era. It was becoming clear, that this story needed the invention of sound film. It was such a problem for this film, the last few minutes of the film begins to drag. There are some nicely framed shots and you do see the camera move, slightly. The special effects are pretty good for a 1910 film and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910), does show a slight improvement on the first film, seen seven years earlier, especially with some of the costumes.

6.2 (D+ MyGrade) = 6 IMDB.

"Quick Drying. Desperate Measures."

[owen-watts · 6/10 · 9 November 2022]

The Chronological AliceFilmQuest II

This second entry on the long and winding history of adaptations of the Lewis Carrol book was made by the Edison Manufacturing Company in 1910. When Thomas Edison was still roaming the world, no less. Much like the Cecil Hepworth epic from some years before, it's more of a series of short vignettes for those who've already read the book. Designwise it sticks extremely close to the Tenniel illustrations and the costumes are rather charming (especially the gormless march hare). There's lots of nice trick photography as well and it doesn't tax the modern mind too much at a brisk ten minutes. It's still not much more than a glorified tech demo than an adaptation in its own right, but the vision of a stuffed dormouse being forcefully shoved into the teapot may never leave me.

It is worthy a week's showing at the best houses

[deickemeyer · 23 August 2015]

The many thousands who have wandered through Wonderland with Alice and have shared her strange and humorous adventures, will be pleased to see this film. Not only is it a remarkably good bit of mechanical work, but the dramatic features are developed so they seem even more surprising than they do in the book. It is one thing to read a story of wonderful adventures. It is quite another to have these same adventures re- enacted before one and all the salient points illustrated by adequate pictorial work. The Edison Company has been happy in its staging, its actors and in the mechanical work. For instance, the scenes where Alice shrinks are remarkably well done. It is a clever bit of work to reproduce that illusion so graphically. Then, too, there are all the old friends, beginning with the rabbit that had a waistcoat with a pocket and a watch to put in the pocket; the March hare and his entertaining friend, the hatter and the dormouse. They are all shown, and the curious way the hare has of doing things is reproduced so one may see exactly how such strange ways of living would look. Indeed, the main features of the story are brought out so plainly that they cannot be mistaken. The many thousands who have read the story, either when they were children or since, will appreciate the enterprise which prompted such an excellent production. This film should run more than a day. It is worthy a week's showing at the best houses. - The Moving Picture World, September 24, 1910

Book Illustrations Again

[Cineanalyst · 3/10 · 2 August 2020]

This short film from the Edison company is basically the same thing that Cecil Hepworth's did in 1903: a series of a few selected scenes from Lewis Carroll's book (suspiciously, most of the very same ones are picked here that were in the 1903 version: rabbit hole and doors; the Duchess, Cook and Baby; Cheshire Cat; Mad tea party; and, finally, meeting the King and Queen of Hearts) in the tableau style with title cards describing proceeding action. Most of it is static shot scenes, although there are bits of continuity editing in the scene with the doors (a few primitive match cuts and awkward angle changes) and a few trick shots in the Georges Méliès tradition to represent Alice's changes in size and transformations for the baby pig and Cheshire Cat. The thing ends with a spinning-cards shot and the dream framing.

The employment of children for non-Alice roles here is a bit amusing. A kid in the White Rabbit costume comes from off-screen rather suddenly, and a child as the Mad Hatter is odd. Alice also encounters the giant puppy, a scene that seems to be lost from the 1903 version (although, a title card for it remains, to suggest that it was originally there). While not a tremendous waste of time because it's so short, this "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is no more than a curiosity, which is curiouser and curiouser only because it seems to rip-off the Hepworth version, or perhaps they're both based on some theatrical tradition of adaptation, although the visual basis, of course, is John Tenniel's illustrations. Otherwise, it's motion-picture book illustrations of selected parts, with wordy title cards that, nevertheless, fail to capture the witty wordplay of Carroll, and a series of mostly static shot-scenes that lack a cinematic imagination for the material. It makes no effort at a self-contained narrative despite the story film being well established by 1910. The same year, the same production company adapted Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" in a cinematically novel way by enhancing the doppelgänger theme with a mirror motif, so the time in which this was made is no excuse--especially because it's also derivative of the same thing done seven years prior.

Amazing

[yusufpiskin · 9/10 · 22 November 2020]

Not much to say here. Just an impressively solid adaptation. The costumes and set seem to be about the best they could do at the time, and the story is so visual and nonsensical, it lends itself to a silent film. 1/2 star bonus point because this version still synced pretty well with Pink Floyd's The Wall.