Themes: Fantasy Lands, Mischievous Children, Talking Animals
Main Cast: Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna
Release Year: 1951
Country: US
Run Time: 75 minutes
MPAA Rating: G
Plot
This Disney feature-length cartoon combines the most entertaining elements of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Chasing after the White Rabbit, who runs into view singing "I'm Late! I'm Late!," Alice falls down the rabbit hole into the topsy-turvy alternate world of Wonderland. She grows and shrinks after following the instructions of a haughty caterpillar, attends a "Very Merry Unbirthday" party in the garden of the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, stands in awe as the Cheshire Cat spouts philosophy, listens in rapt attention as Tweedledum and Tweedledee relate the story of the Walrus and the Carpenter (a sequence usually cut when Alice is shown on TV), and closes out her day with a hectic croquet game at the home of the Red Queen. The music and production design of Alice in Wonderland is marvelous, but the film is too much of a good thing, much too frantic to do full honor to the whimsical Carroll original, and far too episodic to hang together as a unified feature film. One tactical error is having Alice weep at mid-point, declaring her wish to go home: This is Alice in Wonderland, Walt, not Wizard of Oz! Its storytelling shortcomings aside, Alice in Wonderland is superior family entertainment (never mind the efforts in the 1970s to palm off the picture as a psychedelic "head" film). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Not fully appreciated upon its initial release by either critics or audiences, Alice in Wonderland has grown in stature over the years. Its primary failing is that its conventional approach (in both script and design) fails to capture the special dreamlike quality of the Lewis Carroll source material. However, on its own terms, the film is enormously entertaining. The animation is top-notch throughout, but especially so in the sequences involving the Cheshire Cat, the climactic card chase, Alice's many changes of size, and the wonderful Mad Hatter tea party. The actors providing the voices are extremely well cast and are responsible for a great deal of the film's success. Ed Wynn and Jerry Colonna capture the inspired lunacy of the Mad Hatter and the March Hare respectively, and Sterling Holloway is an appropriately disturbing Cheshire Cat. Kathryn Beaumont's Alice is charming, stubborn, bewildered, bossy, prissy, obedient, polite, and irritated by turns, and Beaumont makes the many swift changes believable. Also noteworthy is the score, most of which consists of very short and sometimes incomplete numbers, but still is quite beguiling. Pay special attention to the lovely "In a World of My Own" and the lush "All in the Golden Afternoon." Although Alice in Wonderland may have been taken somewhat for granted originally, the next films for this directing triumvirate -- Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp -- would be recognized immediately as animated classics. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Les Clark - Animator, Eric Larson - Animator, Hal Ambro - Animator, Bob Carlson - Animator, Marc Davis - Animator, Philip Duncan - Animator, Norman Ferguson - Animator, Blaine Gibson - Animator, Bill Justice - Animator, Milt Kahl - Animator, Ward Kimball - Animator, Hal King - Animator, John Lounsbery - Animator, Don Lusk - Animator, Daniel MacManus - Animator, Joshua Meador - Animator, Fred Moore - Animator, Charles A. Nichols - Animator, Cliff Nordberg - Animator, Wolfgang Reitherman - Animator, George Rowley - Animator, Art Stevens - Animator, Harvey Toombs - Animator, Judge Whitaker - Animator, Marvin Woodward - Animator, Frank Thomas - Animator, Hugh Fraser - Animator, Ollie Johnston - Animation Director, Frank Thomas - Animation Director, Clyde Geronimi - Director, Wilfred Jackson - Director, Hamilton Luske - Director, Lloyd L. Richardson - Editor, Sol Kaplan - Composer (Music Score), Oliver Wallace - Composer (Music Score), Mack David - Songwriter, Gene de Paul - Songwriter, Sammy Fain - Songwriter, Al Hoffman - Songwriter, Jerry Livingston - Songwriter, Don Raye - Songwriter, Ted Sears - Songwriter, Bob Hilliard - Songwriter, Walt Disney - Producer, Blaine Gibson - Special Effects, Daniel MacManus - Special Effects, Joshua Meador - Special Effects, George Rowley - Special Effects, Milt Banta - Screenwriter, Del Connell - Screenwriter, Bill Cottrell - Screenwriter, Joe Grant - Screenwriter, Winston Hibler - Screenwriter, Dick Huemer - Screenwriter, Dick Kelsey - Screenwriter, Tom Oreb - Screenwriter, Bill Peet - Screenwriter, Erdman Penner - Screenwriter, Joe Rinaldi - Screenwriter, Ted Sears - Screenwriter, John Walbridge - Screenwriter, Brice Mack - Background Artist, Lewis Carroll - Book Author
