Alice in Wonderland (1933 film)

***Alice in Wonderland*** is a 1933 American Pre-Code film version of the famous *Alice* novels by Lewis Carroll. The film was produced by Paramount Pictures, featuring an all-star cast. It is all live-action, except for the Walrus and the Carpenter sequence, which was animated by the Harman-Ising Studio.

Stars featured in the film included W. C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Edna May Oliver as the Red Queen, Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle (Grant's star was still on the ascent at the time), Gary Cooper as the White Knight, Edward Everett Horton as the Hatter, Charles Ruggles as the March Hare, and Baby LeRoy as the Joker. Charlotte Henry played her first leading role as Alice.

This version was directed by Norman Z. McLeod from a screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and William Cameron Menzies, based on Lewis Carroll's books *Alice's Adventures in Wonderland* (1865) and *Through the Looking-Glass* (1871). It also drew heavily from Eva Le Gallienne and Florida Friebus's then-recent stage adaptation.

The film is occasionally broadcast on cable television channels such as Turner Classic Movies. The original running time was 90 min., but when EMKA bought the television rights in the late 1950s, it was cut to 77 minutes. Universal Studios released the cut version to DVD on March 2, 2010, marking the film's first home video release.

## Plot summary

Left alone with a governess one snowy afternoon (Alice's sister does not appear in this version), Alice is supremely bored. She idly starts to wonder what life is like on the other side of the drawing room mirror, when she suddenly feels a surge of confidence and climbs upon the mantelpiece to look. She discovers that she *can* pass through the looking glass and finds herself in a strange room where many things seem to be the exact reverse of what is in the drawing room. Strangely, through all of this, the governess does not seem to notice what has happened.

Alice looks out the window and suddenly sees a White Rabbit. She follows it to a rabbit hole and falls in. Seeing nobody else there, she comes upon a table with a key to a locked door, and a bottle that bears the sign "Drink Me". In a situation exactly reversed from the book, she grows to enormous size after drinking the bottle's contents. Unable to pass into the room beyond the locked door, she begins to cry. A cake with a sign saying "Eat Me" appears. She eats the cake, shrinks to a tiny size, and is immediately swept along into a flood caused by her own tears. Many more of her adventures follow, combining sections of *Through the Looking Glass* with the original *Alice*. At the end, Alice is awakened from her dream, not by the "pack of playing cards", but by a riotous celebration that goes completely haywire after she is crowned Queen.

## Cast

***In alphabetical order:***

* Richard Arlen: Kenny the Cheshire Cat
* Roscoe Ates: Fish
* William Austin: Gryphon
* Gary Cooper: White Knight
* Leon Errol: Uncle Silbert
* Louise Fazenda: White Queen
* W. C. Fields: Humpty Dumpty
* Alec B. Francis: King of Hearts
* Richard "Skeets" Gallagher: Rabbit
* Cary Grant: Mock Turtle
* Ethel Griffies: The Governess (uncredited)
* Lillian Harmer: Cook
* Charlotte Henry: Alice
* Sterling Holloway: Frog
* Edward Everett Horton: Fred the Hatter
* Roscoe Karns: Tweedle Dee
* Baby LeRoy: Joker
* Mae Marsh: Sheep
* Polly Moran: Dodo Bird
* Jack Oakie: Tweedle Dum
* Edna May Oliver: Red Queen
* May Robson: Queen of Hearts
* Charlie Ruggles: March Hare
* Jackie Searl: The Dormouse
* Alison Skipworth: Duchess
* Ned Sparks: Caterpillar
* Ford Sterling: White King
* Giuliana Collins: Alice (crying) (uncredited)

## References

1. ↑ "Harman-Ising's Alice". *Michael Sporn Animation*. September 30, 2010.

*The Hunting of the Snark*
**🐰Universe🎩**
**Characters**
Dormouse
Red King
The Lion and the Unicorn
Jubjub bird
**Locations**
Looking-glass world
**Related**
*Mischmasch*
Works based on *Alice in Wonderland* (Films and television | Disney franchise)
Translations of *Through the Looking-Glass* | Unbirthday
**🐰Media🎩**
**Film**
1988 (Czechoslovak)
1999
**Stage**
*Alice in Wonderland* (opera)
*Peter and Alice* (2013 play)
*Wonder.land* (Albarn musical)
**Television**
*Once Upon a Time in Wonderland*
**Poems**
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat"
"The Walrus and the Carpenter"
"The Hunting of the Snark"
**Sequels**
*Alice of Wonderland in Paris* (1966)
*Automated Alice* (1996)
*Wonderland Revisited and the Games Alice Played There* (2009)
**Retellings**
*Alice's Adventures in Wonderland retold in words of one syllable* (1905)
*Alice in Verse: The Lost Rhymes of Wonderland* (2010)
**Parodies**
*Lost in Blunderland* (1903)
*Alice in Blunderland: An Iridescent Dream* (1904)
**Imitations**
*A New Wonderland* (1898)
*Alice in Orchestralia* (1925)
**Reimagining**
*Alice or the Last Escapade* (1977)
*Malice in Wonderland* (2009)
*Alice Through the Looking Glass* (2016)
**Literary**
*Miyuki-chan in Wonderland*
**Video games**
*Alice in Wonderland* (2010)
*Alice: Madness Returns* (2011)