Alice in Wonderland (1951)
|  Ever since he was a boy, Walt Disney had been fascinated by Lewis Carroll’s groundbreaking 19th-century children’s novels Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. The imaginative sense of fantasy, clever wordplay, and elaborate nonsense had captured young Disney’s imagination and had a profound impact on his own growth as an artist and animator. It is no surprise, then, that Disney used Carroll’s books as inspiration for his first forays into animation and that he endeavored to turn them into a feature-length animated film as soon as such an idea seemed feasible. However, translating Carroll’s prose into a workable feature film turned out to be more difficult than anticipated. It was only after several failed attempts--one of which was curtailed by Paramount releasing its own live-action Alice film in 1933 and one of which was sidelined by the outbreak of World War II--that Disney was able to bring Alice’s adventures to the big screen in 1951, making it the company’s thirteenth animated feature.Unfortunately, the resulting film, bearing the title Alice in Wonderland (which Disney had registered with the MPPDA back in 1938), is one of Disney’s weakest and most uncharacteristic films. While it maintains many of Carroll’s most familiar and beloved characters and scenarios, there is no coherent narrative or thematic thread linking them. The film plays as a series of colorful, but uneven setpieces that lack an interesting or emotionally engaging heroine to tie them together. Disney’s Alice (Kathryn Beaumont) is a truly two-dimensional cipher whose primary purpose is to wander from scenario to scenario and display a modest, ever-so-British amount of surprise, delight, etc. at the strange events that befall her. To be fair, this was one of the consistent weaknesses of early, exclusively reactive Disney heroines (starting with Snow White), but if ever there were an opportunity to enliven a story with a strong, intriguing female presence, Alice was it. As is, the only thing we know about Alice is that she is easily bored by her older sister and doesn’t like books that don’t have pictures. When she takes off after the fabled white rabbit (Bill Thompson), it is less a sign of her impudence and headstrong desire for adventure than it is a plot necessity. The film does hold out a few distinct pleasures, particularly its visual approach, which eschews the fine-lined, detailed approach of John Tenniel’s illustrations in the original printings of Carroll’s books in favor of a slightly more abstract, cartoonish look, which heightens the story’s surreal nature. It looks forward to the modernist, hand-sketched look of One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), rather than back at the more painterly, storybook look of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), and Bambi (1942). Alice in Wonderland is also one of Disney’s most intriguing attempts to meld music and imagery. While it sticks to the classic Disney musical mold, it also expands the formula by inserting numerous short musical bits that were designed primarily to incorporate as much of Carroll’s poetic verbiage as possible. Thus, Alice in Wonderland has more songs in it than any other Disney film, although many of them are only a few seconds in length. Yet, it is hard not to feel that Alice in Wonderland is somehow smaller than it should be. Especially since Disney had been trying to get this film off the ground for the better part of two decades, one would imagine something more sprawling and--dare I say it?--daring. While all the usual suspects are in attendance, including the tricky Cheshire Cat (Sterling Holloway), the temperamental and axe-happy Queen of Hearts (Verna Felton), the Mad Hatter (Ed Wynn), and the hooka-smoking blue caterpillar (Richard Haydn), it all feels a bit too tamped down for its own good, as if Disney were afraid to delve past the obvious surface of Carroll’s tricky, satirical madness and truly embrace the uncanny delights it offers.
Copyright ©2010 James Kendrick Thoughts? E-mail James Kendrick All images copyright © Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Overall Rating: 
(2)
