Alice in Wonderland (1949) User Reviews

Lewis Carroll tells Alice about her adventures in Wonderland

[MAK-4 · 6/10 · 3 August 1998]

Better known for being suppressed by Disney to protect their 1951 production, this co-French/British production is surprisingly successful at capturing Carroll's logical nonsense. A prologue with author Dodson/Carroll, Alice and her sisters, and a visit by Queen Victoria (splendidly played by Pamela Brown) sets up amusing "clues," a la the Kansas scenes in THE WIZARD OF OZ.

The main story is told with a live Alice moving through painted sets and wonderful pixilated puppets. There's real eccentric charm and fun in many of the sequences, the fish-footmen are particularly funny with a Gilbert & Sullivan style number to match. Sadly, the "Ansco" color has apparently gone to rack and ruin, but the intentions can at least still be seen. Still, it comes closer to an acceptable Carroll then most adaptations.

Rarely shown version of the classic tale is one of the better attempts to bring the story to life

[dbborroughs · 7/10 · 12 December 2009]

Surprising good animated version of the classic tale begins with a brief bit with brief bit set at Lewis Carol's college where he and Alice (and her sisters) meet various characters, including the Queen of England who end up as characters in Wonderland. Once the story begins Alice interacts with the Wonderland characters who are all stop motion characters. It's a trippy tale that kind of reminded me of the big budget color spectaculars (The Red Shoes came to mind) that were produced in the late 40's and early 50's. This film was supposedly suppressed by Walt Disney whose own studio was working on his own version at the time and so has been difficult to see ever since. While the music isn't as spectacular as in other (Disney) versions, the film bests those other version in that it flows better than most other versions. This is probably the first film version that I've seen where the story seems as if it's a single story instead of a group of loosely connected sequences. It may not seem like much but it really works wonders and for my money is the first version that satisfies me from start to finish. I know some people don't like the animation which is old school, but I like it since it adds a sense of other worldliness to the proceedings. Worth a look if you can find it.

Definition Of Surreal

[TondaCoolwal · 6/10 · 15 May 2021]

What a weird film! So much wrong with it, but so much right about it. Wanted to see this version for years after catching part of it on TV in the 1950s. I've just managed to achieve my goal through a reconstructed edition on Youtube. Having said that, the colour wasn't very good. It needs a proper digital restoration.

Let's be honest, this is always going to trail behind the Disney version which is warm and cosy. Bower's film trends all of the Victorian attitudes towards children and you feel at times as if you've had your knuckles rapped!

Carol Marsh is far too old to play Alice, and yet she does it perfectly. Possibly Jean Simmons could have filled the part, but we'll never know. Anyway, like most of the live cast, she has long faded into obscurity. In the framing segment, my favourite was Pamela Brown as the malapropistic Queen Victoria; absolutely right for the role. And to think it was her portrayal that held up the release of the film, being considered disrespectful. Says a lot about deference in 1949 doesn't it!

Unfortunately, the animated puppets are unappealing, having rather grotesque faces. The best characterization was the White Rabbit, a real unlikeable mean so-and-so. Also, since the opening credits tell us that Carroll based his characters on real Oxford people. I think it would have been better to have the same actors in the framing sequence, in costume as the Wonderland characters; like in The Wizard Of Oz. The scenery is what you would expect. Looking very much like stage props with lots of hidey-holes for the puppets to use. The songs aren't up to much, apart from the fish-footmen sequence which I found highly amusing; Marsh seems to have a good voice; but it's really an uncredited Adele Leigh. Having Lewis Carroll in the scenario was a good idea. But, he comes across as a rather weak character. Not having the courage of his convictions when he has the opportunity to ask The Queen about removing the noisy bell at his Oxford college. Also, I don't understand why there is an American narrator.

Worth watching for being faithful to the book and for comparison with other movie and TV versions. But, it's never going to be the one you remember.

Outgrabes

[tedg · 27 October 2002]

Spoilers herein.

`Alice' has to be among the most unfilmable literary experiences on the planet. But of all the attempts (I think I have seen them all), this is the most Alice-like. But good luck finding a copy -- Disney crushed it to eliminate competition for its cartoon travesty. The only problem is that while this has the most Alice, it is a pretty unengaging film. I saw it in an audience that was mostly preteen girls and they were bored. Disney scores higher on the motion and color attraction scale.

Some interesting things:

--This is likely the first Alice with a longhaired, blue-eyed blond Alice in a blue dress. Incidentally, Alice's sisters are a redhead and brunette. A rather striking statement. (The redhead is a bitch.)

--They added some unattractive songs, and music to existing songs and poems. But at the same time, abridged in odd places: there is no mouses's tail, no serpent and pigeon, lots of small cuts in the text that are every bit as awkward as what they lost. They added a goofy bit about 100 fish-footmen. The puppy now has a bell that resembles that in the Tower of Christchurch.

--But some of the changes are pretty well informed, showing that the writer did some homework. Two elements at least are from the handwritten version that were changed in the later printed book: Alice now works with both the rabbit's gloves and `magic' fan, and she goes through a door in a tree.

One thing that makes this different is the framing. We are given the storyteller and the story. Much is made of the mirroring of one into the other, a device that is central to `Alice.' Strange that they note the stuttering but don't tie it to the Dodo. They note Dodgson as a photographer but fail to capitalize on the delicious possibilities of him as the filmmaker.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.

A good job, though technically awkward by today's standards

[Nozz · 6/10 · 10 February 2012]

Here's the good, the bad, and the disclaimer. First the good. The movie places Alice in Wonderland in proper context, with a prologue featuring Charles Dodgson as an Oxfordian who is inwardly iconoclastic but no firebrand, and who enjoys the company of innocent girls a generation younger. As the Alice story unfolds, we can see how it provides Dodgson an opportunity to satirize his own environment. The movie makers invent some parallels, but the inventions are benign and well within the spirit of the original. Dodgson, for example, has furtively stolen a tart in the prologue. Perhaps the most successful aspect of the movie is the stylized sets through which Alice roams. They are completely believable as stage scenery, while on the other hand they can easily accommodate the stop-motion puppets who play the Wonderland characters, so that they smoothly mediate between the natural and the artificial. What's bad about the movie is that the puppets are mostly crude and offputting in their design and movement. If I hadn't seen the year cited here on IMDb, I would have pegged the movie a good decade and a half earlier-- also because of the badly dated music. But the disclaimer I must provide is that the print I saw may not do justice to the movie. It had no color, the sound was less than perfectly synchronized, and the picture was not very sharp. Maybe a good color print would have looked more pleasant and up-to-date.

I Learned a Few Things

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 12 February 2017]

This version of Alice in Wonderland tries to tell us how Lewis Carroll came to create the characters he did. After a very British beginning, he tells the story of the young girl to some young girls. Of course, it starts with the trip into the rabbit hole. Alice follows, carelessly, running willy nilly through brightly decorated caverns. She has the usual encounters with growing and shrinking, making it hard to get through doors. What follows is quite good. The stop action Wonderland characters are striking. Some are grotesques; some are quite tame. But all of them have been created with thoughtfulness and skill. The story isn't as good as the visuals. I now must confess, that having read this book several times, I can't say I've ever enjoyed it. I think that I should try some critical works and they might assist me in the allegorical features. i did learn about Disney's successful efforts to keep this film out of release to promote his animated piece.

Color Has Arrived

[PCC0921 · 6/10 · 1 March 2023]

After almost half a century, Lewis Carroll's, Alice in Wonderland, has had a bumpy road, when it comes to theatrical motion picture adaptations. Even the audiences from the classic era of film weren't too crazy with the costumes and special effects, that were being utilized in these films. They felt that this kind of a story could never be adapted well into a motion picture. Silent films had the toughest job telling this story, because a lot of the plot in Alice in Wonderland is driven by dialogue. The audiences needed sound. Then the sound versions came out and those versions didn't do well either, because audiences still weren't buying the story of Alice with the technical problems still being there. The best of the classic Alice films is Alice in Wonderland (1933) and the audiences of the day didn't go see it. So, next comes color film and how did Alice's story do with that?

This new version (for 1949), had color and was produced in France. Up to this point, the film adaptations were all American or British productions. Maybe the French could do a better job this time. What if, they went with something other than costumes for this one. With so much rejection coming from the audiences of the past, about the odd characters in Wonderland, never looking believable, the idea for this film was to use stop-motion photography, to make the characters more authentic to the source material. The French filmmakers than added in more music interludes to the film and created a prologue, which involves Alice having a dream about Wonderland. She is just dreaming of a story, that her friend, Lewis Carroll (Stephen Murray), is telling her. Yes, this is the first adaptation, that includes Wonderland author, Lewis Carroll as a character. This is another interesting change to this story.

In Alice's dream, she substitutes the characters in the live-action Oxford part of the film with the stop-motion characters in Wonderland. This film has the same problem, that Alice in Wonderland (1931), had, in which, the Alice actress was twenty years old, playing a character, that is supposed to be, barely ten years old. This film works better in that regard, because the costume, hair and make-up works better here, than the 1931 film did. As long as there aren't too many close-ups of her, to give it away, the full-packaged performance does work. I mean, really, that is what acting is all about I guess. Being able to execute a character, no matter what kind, is the whole point of acting. Anyway, the 1931 depiction of Alice was bad, but the age problem doesn't really effect the quality of this film.

The problem with this film comes from the special effects themselves. It isn't the stop-motion that is the problem, so much as the matting, choice of effects and the practical analogue effects, they had at their disposal, compared to the budget they had. This wasn't a huge Hollywood production, that utilized the best equipment on the market. It was an international picture, who's film industry didn't have as much cash as Hollywood, so the special effects used in this film, look more like effects from the 1930s. Again, the stop-motion effects used in Alice in Wonderland (1949), by pioneering, stop-motion artist, Lou Bunin, is fine in this movie. It is the other effects in the movie that are the problem. Stop-motion photography was huge in the late 1940s and 1950s. It was one of the more preferred means of doing creature effects in films of the time period. The legendary Ray Harryhausen was hitting his stride at this point and Willis O'Brien had just released Mighty Joe Young (1949). Stop-motion was king at this time. Lou Bunin does a nice job with Alice in Wonderland (1949), especially in the climactic scene with the Lobsters. It is a very good depiction of what that scene would look like, especially compared to the previous adaptations of this book. It made perfect sense to use stop-motion effects.

This film has its problems, mostly related to a grittiness, that doesn't translate well into a vision of being very polished. The story, editing and pace does jump around a little too much. The version of this film I saw was a poorly pixilated, VHS version of the American release. After I watched the American version, I found the French version, but unfortunately the French language version came without English subtitles, but was of a much higher quality. It must have come from a DVD quality print. So, I skipped through the French version and I saw what I was looking for. The higher quality version does improve the qualify of the overall film and the special effects. It helps show the excellent detail of the stop-motion characters that Lou Bunin used. The Lobsters look much better in their pivotal scene. So, try and find the highest quality you can out there, because this film may not be great, but it isn't terrible either. It is a fair effort towards, what has been a difficult story to tell in cinema. It needs 1951 to arrive.

5.4 (D- MyGrade) = 6 IMDB.

The creepy kind of weird.

[happyreflex · 3/10 · 7 January 2009]

It's a hideous little production, apt to give one nightmares as well as headaches. It's an unsightly blend of live action and ugly stop-motion animation. It's weird, but it's not the kind of fun, weird trip anyone optimistic might expect. It's the cold, inhuman, unfriendly, sickening, even creepy kind of weird. There is absolutely no reason to watch this movie. After all, Disney did a fantastic job with the same source material. And Cosgrove-Hall did far more attractive things with stop-motion.

Interestingly, this is a French production. As such, it re-enforces the stereotype that the French have no concept of scary.

A Neglected Rare Classic

[johnstonjames · 10/10 · 14 March 2010]

first one major footnote; why is there a picture of the Disney 'Alice' pictured here for the Lou Bunin french puppet film? you'd think IMDb would be more meticulous.

loved the movie. thought the DVD-film transfer was awful. this film needs to be restored and treated better. it's a much better film than people act like it is. the puppets aren't scary. they are actually really good and kind of artsy. they just need to be seen in total color and not the lurid DVD transfer that makes them seem dull and washed-out looking.

Carol Marsh is great(there's never been a bad Alice)and her singing is quite charming.

i'm not saying this movie isn't really weird. it's definitely pretty strange stuff. but i'm tired of people always complaining about the film and saying it doesn't work. it's an excellent stop-motion animation film and if everyone would stop bitching this film could get the attention it deserves and someone will get off their lazy butt and restore the color and image.

they rumour that Disney tried hard to keep this film out of the market which led to it's neglect. i admire Disney very much, but if it's true he led to the neglect of this great film, then shame on him. Disney's 'Alice' is a marvelous film. there was no reason to be so jealous and babyish about this. after all, Walt didn't write 'Alice', Lewis Carroll did. Walt was not entitled to any monopoly on this story.

Chasing Alice

[Cineanalyst · 7/10 · 5 August 2020]

Produced and released shortly before Disney's feature-length cartoon version, this "Alice in Wonderland" has a curious legal history whereby Disney frivolously sued to delay or prevent its release and the competition it might bring. Curiouser, the two Alice films share a couple important similarities. They're both animated, although in different ways; Disney's is drawn, and this one is stop-motion puppetry mixed with live action. Both regrettably add songs that lend logic and order to what was otherwise a Wonderland of episodic nonsense. And, yes, Alice is a blonde in a blue dress for both. Apparently, the coloring of this one has become degraded in the intervening years and has since not been restored, plus Disney prevented it from being filmed in Technicolor, so it literally pales in comparison to the colorful Disney picture. Moreover, some now claim the Disney film a "classic," whereas this one remains relatively obscure. That's a shame, too, because it's somewhat more faithful to Lewis Carroll's books and especially the first one, and the "reality" framing device is an insightful bit concerning art reflecting life.

The outer narrative shows Carroll's story to be "not so simple, because you will see that Lewis Carroll modeled his creatures of Wonderland on the foibles of real people." This framing, then, is similar to the Kansas scenes of the 1939 "The Wizard Oz," which in turn is based on L. Frank Baum's book that was intended as an American counterpart to the Alice books. And, unfortunately, although not likewise photographed in black and white, as were the Kansas scenes in the 1939 film, the outer narrative here is bland. It sets up that the characters seen surrounding Oxford will later lend their voices and attributes to the inner animated story's cast--most of all, of course, that of Alice Liddell and the fictional Alice, as portrayed by the same actress (an adult one, by the way, which is common in film adaptations). Alice mostly provides voiceover narration of her thoughts, which was surely helpful for translation as the film was released in French and English-language versions. The most interesting part here is the inclusion of Charles Dodgson's (a.k.a. Carroll's) interest in still photography, which adds another layer of reflexivity to a film that already features its author as a character telling the story. This largely replaces the usual dream framing, although this is hinted at, too, by the Alice Liddell's reactions to the story Dodgson tells her.

The main, inner narrative is largely plotted around Alice being chased by the vengeful White Rabbit, whom Alice was pursuing in the first place to land her in Wonderland. He schemes to set her up for the crime of stealing the Queen's tarts after the incident of her causing havoc by growing taller inside his house. Other episodes are also oddly made sense of here; for example, the scene where the mouse decides to recite the driest bit of history he knows--a humorous pun in the book--is turned into a song here, which is hardly dry at all. Nevertheless, the puppetry appreciably lends weirdness to the proceedings, and some of the decidedly-artificial settings are well designed, including the checkered layout of the hall at the bottom of the rabbit hole. The rapid cutting of Alice and the Rabbit running is effective, too. On the other hand, some of the cutting between live-action Alice and the animated puppets seems a blatant workaround to otherwise having to do more composite shots--rendering the fantasy that Alice and the characters of Wonderland are inhabiting the same place less believable. Despite it not all smoothly succeeding, it's interesting how many layers are worked with here, between a real actor combined with puppets and the fictional Wonderland inside the outer world of Carroll as author and photographer and Alice as dreamer of her fictional self.

One of the best versions of Alice in Wonderland

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 20 September 2014]

Alice in Wonderland is a classic, it may be oddball and episodic in structure but the atmosphere, humour, colourful characters and Carroll's way of words(like his poetry, logic and paradoxes). As someone who likes most of the versions of Alice in Wonderland- and Alice Through the Looking Glass as well for that matter, another classic that has even more colour, eccentricity and kookiness- I was hugely impressed by this version, even though it is not without its flaws. The live-action book-ending scenes were conceptually intriguing- always is interesting to see how Lewis Carroll(or Charles Lutwidge Dodgson came about writing Alice in Wonderland- they were for my tastes too tediously paced and stiffly acted, the actual story not beginning until ten minutes in when it easily have done so sooner. Though credit is due for reinforcing the idea that Carroll did base his characters on real-life people which no other version of Alice in Wonderland did. Wasn't entirely crazy on the character designs for the Caterpillar, Mock Turtle and particularly the Duchess, Caterpillar didn't really look like a caterpillar, Mock Turtle was a touch too creepy and the Duchess's ugliness was taken to extremities.

However, adaptation-wise it is possibly the most faithful version along with the 1999 and 1985 adaptations and on its own terms it's also up there with the best along with Disney's and the film from 1933. The stop-motion visuals look pretty incredible even now, the sets are both magical and with an abstract, surreal quality, particularly good are the beach after the pool of tears scene and the wonderfully weird origami-like field of grass, though the design of the White Rabbit's house and Queen of Hearts' garden deserve a mention too. Most of the characters are designed superbly- it was clear how much effort and detail went into these visuals- the White Rabbit, the Dodo, Queen of Hearts and Cheshire Cat being particularly noteworthy. But that doesn't mean that any less detail went into designing the minor characters because they were just as impressive, especially the fish footmen. The score is beautiful and whimsical, and while not as memorable as the ones from the Disney and 1933 films(and Mock Turtle's song is slightly overacted) the songs are very pleasant melodically- the operetta-like style they were written in was personally quite appealing- and most admirably includes the dialogue and poetry of the book. Certainly better than the hit-and-miss standard of songs of the otherwise very good 1985 adaptation.

The writing is one of the best things here, there is a weirdness(which is needed really because the story itself is weird, and I mean this in a good way) and creepiness in abundance but also the whimsy, eccentric humour, oddball charm and Carroll's use of logic(done in a twisted way like in the book) and paradoxes. This version is also the most successful of all the adaptations of the book to actually feel like a succinct story that flows seamlessly from one scene to the next instead of being episodic, which is remarkable for a story that is as acknowledged early on in the review episodic structurally. It was good too to have it as just Alice in Wonderland instead of incorporating elements of Through the Looking Glass. The characters are still as colourful as they ought, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party and the scenes with the Queen of Hearts being the most entertaining. Carol Marsh is very charming and winsome as Alice and carries the film beautifully, some might say she's too old but actually that's a fairly insignificant issue really considering that only the 1985 and 1999 versions have Alices being Alice's age or close to. The Wonderland characters are very well-voiced though that for the Duchess wasn't to my tastes, too pantomime-dame-ish.

In conclusion, a very good film and one of the best versions of Alice in Wonderland as an adaptation and on its own merits. It is in need of a restoration though. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Alice in Wonderland

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 4 January 2023]

I think this is the closest thing to a "trip" I've ever experienced on film - at times it's a positively surreal interpretation of Lewis Carroll's nonsense story of "Alice" (Carol Marsh) and her adventures having fallen down the rabbit hole. Unlike the colourful, but much fluffier Disney adaptation that followed in 1951, this is a more sophisticated, clever and intricate hybrid of real life characters married with some basic, but engaging, stop-motion animation as she encounters the "Mad Hatter"; "Cheshire Cat"; 'Ugly Duchess" and, of course, the brutally minded "Queen of Hearts" (voiced here excellently by Pamela Brown). I'm not really a fan of the story, and sadly although an undoubtedly creatively accomplished effort from Dallas Bower and Irving Block, this doesn't really do much to sustain my interest. The pace is suitably frenetic, but Marsh is pretty flat in the title role, and the innovative effects of the production start to war thin quickly leaving us with little better than a semi-animated farce of a film. If you enjoyed the wackiness of Carroll's original book, then you may well get more from this than I did, but I'm afraid it was all just too silly for me, sorry.

scary puppets, sickly songs

[didi-5 · 7 March 2010]

This version of 'Alice in Wonderland' (a co-production between the UK and France) suffered from being released around the same time as the Disney cartoon with little advertising; and through being suppressed from release in the UK due to the portrayal of Queen Victoria in the early pre-fantasy scenes.

It was also filmed in Ansocolor, a process which has not travelled well if the print in the archives is anything to go by. Carol Marsh is an OK Alice, but looks older than she should be - the puppets are mainly hideous and would be frightening to children (especially the Mock Turtle, the Duchess, and the Mouse Alice encounters in the lake of tears). I did like the footmen-fish however and the combination of live action with puppet work, if a bit creaky, does have charm.

At the start of the film, we meet the dons of Oxford and the Queen (the Vice-Chancellor then becomes the White Rabbit, the Queen is the Queen of Hearts, with the same actors providing the voices). The switch into the 'Wonderland' story proper comes with a boat trip in which the stuttering Dodgson entertains the Liddel girls to compensate from them missing the visit of the Queen to Oxford.

There is much to enjoy in this film - the score is good, if a little saccharine, the puppets are memorable (although one or two, especially the Caterpillar, compare unfavourably with their Disney counterparts), and the story still has charm. There is also enough humour to entertain adult audiences while the main story enthrals their children. Recommended, if hard to track down these days.