Alice in Wonderland (1951 film)
Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and based on the "Alice" books by Lewis Carroll. The thirteenth release of Disney's animated features, the film premiered in London on July 26, 1951, and in New York City on July 28, 1951. The film features the voices of Kathryn Beaumont as Alice, Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat, Verna Felton as the Queen of Hearts, and Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter. Walt Disney first tried to adapt "Alice" into a feature-length animated film  in the 1930s and revived the idea in the 1940s. The film was originally intended to be a live-action/animated film; however, Disney decided to make it a fully animated film in 1946. Its sequel, "Alice Through the Looking Glass", was planned to be released in 1952, but it was soon scrapped. The film was considered a disappointment on its initial release, therefore was shown on television as one of the first episodes of "Disneyland". Its 1974 re-release in theaters proved to be much more successful, leading to subsequent re-releases, merchandising and home video releases. Although the  film received generally negative critical reviews on its initial release, it has been more positively reviewed over the years. Plot. In a park in England, a young girl named Alice with her cat, Dinah, listens distractedly to her sister's history lesson, and begins daydreaming of a nonsensical world. She spots a passing White Rabbit in a waistcoat, who panics of being late. Alice follows him into a burrow and plummets down a deep rabbit hole. Upon landing in a place called Wonderland, she finds herself facing a tiny door, whose handle advises drinking from a bottle on a nearby  table. She shrinks to an appropriate height, but has forgotten the key on the table. She then eats a cookie that causes her to grow excessively. Exasperated by these changes of state, she begins to cry and floods the room with her tears. She takes another sip from the bottle to shrink again, and rides the empty bottle through the keyhole. As Alice continues to follow the Rabbit after encountering a “Cacaus Race”, she encounters numerous characters, including Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who recount the tale of "The Walrus and the Carpenter". Alice tracks the Rabbit to his house; he mistakes  her for his housemaid, "Mary Ann", and sends her inside to retrieve his gloves. While searching for the gloves, Alice finds and eats another cookie and grows giant, getting stuck in the house. Thinking her a monster, the Rabbit asks the Dodo to help expel her. When the Dodo decides to burn the house down, Alice escapes by eating a carrot from the Rabbit's garden, which causes her to shrink to 3 inches tall. Continuing to follow the Rabbit, Alice meets a garden of talking flowers who initially welcome her with a song, but then banish her, believing that  humans are a type of weed. Alice then encounters a Caterpillar smoking, who becomes enraged at Alice after she laments her small size (which is the same as the Caterpillar's), after which the Caterpillar turns into a butterfly and flies away. Before leaving, the Caterpillar advises Alice to eat a piece from different sides of a mushroom to alter her size. Following a period of trial and error, she returns to her original height and keeps the remaining pieces in her pocket. In the woods, Alice gets stuck between multiple paths and encounters the mischievous Cheshire Cat, who suggests  questioning the Mad Hatter or the March Hare to learn the Rabbit's location, but is unhelpful in giving directions. Taking her own path, Alice encounters both, along with the Dormouse, in the midst of an "unbirthday" tea party celebration. The Hatter and the Hare ask Alice to explain her predicament, to which Alice tries but becomes frustrated by their interruptions and absurd logic. As she prepares to leave, the Rabbit appears and the Hatter attempts to repair his pocket watch, which results in its destruction. Alice attempts to follow the Rabbit after he is ejected from the premises, but  decides to go home instead. Unfortunately, her surroundings completely change, leaving her lost in the forest. The Cheshire Cat reappears to the despondent Alice and offers a path to the hot-headed Queen of Hearts, the only one who can take her home. In the Queen's labyrinthine garden, Alice witnesses the Queen – whom the Rabbit serves as a chamberlain – sentencing a trio of playing cards to decapitation for painting mistakenly-planted white rosebushes red. The Queen invites a reluctant Alice to play against her in a croquet match, in which live flamingos, card guards, and hedgehogs are used as  equipment. The equipment rig the game in favor of the Queen. The Cat appears again and plays a trick on the Queen, setting up Alice to be framed. Before the Queen can sentence her to decapitation, the King suggests a formal trial. At Alice's trial, the Cat invokes more chaos by having Alice point him out, causing one of the witnesses – the Dormouse – to panic. As the Queen sentences Alice to decapitation, Alice eats the mushroom pieces to grow large, momentarily intimidating the court. However, the mushroom's effect is short-lived, forcing Alice to flee through the deteriorating  realm with a large crowd in pursuit. When Alice reaches the small door she encountered, she sees herself sleeping through the keyhole. Alice emerges from her dream, and she returns home for tea with her sister. Directing animators. Directing animators are: Production. Development. Walt Disney was familiar with Lewis Carroll's "Alice" books, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1865) and "Through the Looking-Glass" (1871), and had read them as a school boy. In 1923, he was a 21-year-old aspiring filmmaker working at the Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, making the unsuccessful short cartoon series by  the name of "Newman Laugh-O-Grams." The last of "Newman Laugh-O-Grams" was called "Alice's Wonderland," which was loosely inspired by the "Alice" books. The short featured a live-action girl (Virginia Davis) interacting with an animated world. Faced with business problems, however, the Laugh-O-Gram Studio went bankrupt in July 1923, and the film was never released to the general public. However, Disney left for Hollywood and used the film to show to potential distributors. Margaret J. Winkler of Winkler Pictures agreed to distribute the "Alice Comedies," and Disney partnered with his older brother Roy  O. Disney and re-hired Kansas City co-workers including Ub Iwerks, Rudolph Ising, Friz Freleng, Carman Maxwell and Hugh Harman to form the Disney Brothers Studios, which was later re-branded Walt Disney Productions. The series began in 1924 before being retired in 1927. In 1933, Disney considered making a feature-length animated-and-live-action version of "Alice" starring Mary Pickford. However, these plans were eventually scrapped in favor of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", mainly because Disney was put off by Paramount's 1933 live-action adaptation "Alice in Wonderland". However, Disney did not completely abandon  the idea of adapting "Alice", and in 1936 he made the "Mickey Mouse" cartoon "Thru the Mirror". In 1938, after the enormous success of "Snow White", Disney bought the film rights of "Alice in Wonderland" with Sir John Tenniel's illustrations, and officially registered the title with the Motion Picture Association of America. He then hired storyboard artist Al Perkins and art director David S. Hall to develop the story and concept art for the film. A story reel was completed in 1939, but Disney was not pleased; he felt that Hall's drawings resembled Tenniel's drawings too closely , making them too difficult to animate, and that the overall tone of Perkins' script was too grotesque and dark. Realizing the amount of work needed for "Alice in Wonderland", and with the economic devastation of World War II and the production demands of "Pinocchio", "Fantasia", and "Bambi", Disney shelved production on "Alice in Wonderland" shortly after the screening. In fall 1945, shortly after the war ended, Disney revived "Alice in Wonderland" and hired British author Aldous Huxley to re-write the script. Huxley devised a story in which Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell (the inspiration for Alice) were misunderstood and  persecuted following the book's publication. In Huxley's story, stage actress Ellen Terry was sympathetic to both Carroll and Liddell, and Queen Victoria served as the deus ex machina, validating Carroll due to her appreciation for the book. Disney considered child actress Margaret O'Brien for the title role. However, he felt that Huxley's version was too literal an adaptation of Carroll's book. Background artist Mary Blair submitted some concept drawings for "Alice in Wonderland". Blair's paintings moved away from Tenniel's detailed illustrations by taking a modernist stance, using bold and unreal colors. Walt liked Blair 's designs, and the script was re-written to focus on comedy, music, and the whimsical side of Carroll's books. Around this time, Disney considered making a live-action-and-animated version of "Alice in Wonderland" (similar to his short "Alice Comedies") that would star Ginger Rogers and would utilize the recently developed sodium vapor process. Lisa Davis (who later voiced Anita Radcliffe in "One Hundred and One Dalmatians") and Luana Patten were also considered for the role of Alice. However, Disney soon realized that he could only do justice to the book by making an all-animated feature  and, in 1946, work began on "Alice in Wonderland". With the film tentatively scheduled for release in 1950, animation crews on "Alice in Wonderland" and "Cinderella" effectively competed against each other to see which film would finish first. By early 1948, "Cinderella" had progressed further than "Alice in Wonderland". A legal dispute with Dallas Bower's 1949 film version was also under way. Disney sued to prevent release of the British version in the U.S., and the case was extensively covered in "Time" magazine. The company that released the British version accused Disney of trying to exploit their film by  releasing its version at virtually the same time. Writing. Through various drafts of the script, many sequences that were present in Carroll's book drifted in and out of the story. However, Disney insisted that the scenes themselves keep close to those in the novel since most of its humor is in the writing. One omitted scene from the 1939 treatment of the film occurred outside the Duchess' manor, where the Fish Footman is giving a message to the Frog Footman to take to the Duchess, saying that she is invited to play croquet with the Queen of Hearts. Alice  overhears this and sneaks into the kitchen of the manor, where she finds the Duchess' Cook maniacally cooking and the Duchess nursing her baby. The cook is spraying pepper all over the room, causing the Duchess and Alice to sneeze and the baby to cry. After a quick conversation between Alice and the Duchess, the hot-tempered Cook starts throwing pots and pans at the noisy baby. Alice rescues the baby, but as she leaves the house the baby turns into a pig and runs away. The scene was scrapped for pacing reasons. Another scene that was deleted from a  later draft occurred in Tulgey Wood, where Alice encountered what appeared to be a sinister-looking Jabberwock hiding in the dark, before revealing himself as a comical-looking dragon-like beast with bells and factory whistles on his head. A song, "Beware the Jabberwock", was also written. However, the scene was scrapped in favor of "The Walrus and the Carpenter" poem. Out of a desire to keep the Jabberwocky poem in the film, it was made to replace an original song for the Cheshire Cat, "I'm Odd". Another deleted scene in Tulgey Wood shows Alice consulting with The White  Knight, who was meant to be somewhat a caricature of Walt Disney. Although Disney liked the scene, he felt it was better if Alice learned her lesson by herself, hence the song "Very Good Advice". Other characters, such as The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon were discarded for pacing reasons, though they would later appear alongside Alice in some commercials. Music. In an effort to retain some of Carroll's imaginative poems, Disney commissioned top songwriters to compose songs built around them for use in the film. Over 30 potential songs were written, and many of them were included in  the film—some for only a few seconds—the greatest number of songs of any Disney film. In 1939, Frank Churchill was assigned to compose songs, and they were accompanied by a story reel featuring artwork from David S. Hall. Although none of his songs were used in the finished film, the melody for "Lobster Quadrille" was used for the song "Never Smile at a Crocodile" in "Peter Pan". When work on "Alice" resumed in 1946, Tin Pan Alley songwriters Mack David, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston began composing songs for it after working on "Cinderella". However, the only song  by the trio that made it into the film was "The Unbirthday Song". While he was composing songs in New York, Sammy Fain had heard that the Disney studios wanted him to compose songs for "Alice in Wonderland". He also suggested lyricist Bob Hilliard as his collaborator. The two wrote two unused songs for the film, "Beyond the Laughing Sky" and "I'm Odd". The music for the former song was kept but the lyrics were changed, and it later became the title song for "Peter Pan", "The Second Star to the Right". By April 1950, Fain and Hilliard had  finished composing songs for the film. The title song, composed by Sammy Fain, has become a jazz standard, adapted by jazz pianist Dave Brubeck in 1952 and included on his 1957 Columbia album "Dave Digs Disney". The song, "In a World of My Own," is included on the of "". Soundtrack and Camarata version. There was no soundtrack album available when the film was released in 1951. RCA Victor released a story album and single records with Kathryn Beaumont and several cast members that re-created the story, but it was not the soundtrack. in 1944, Decca Records had released a  Ginger Rogers dramatization of Lewis Carroll's book with Disney cover art (perhaps tying in with earlier discussions of her being cast as a live-action Disney "Alice," Decca did indeed license the rights to release the 1951 Alice soundtrack from Disney, but later decided against it and never produced one. When Disney started its own record company, Disneyland Records, in Spring 1956, it was found to be economically unfeasible at the time to take on the fees and other costs to produce a soundtrack album. In 1957, Tutti Camarata arranged and conducted an elaborate original production of the Alice  score with Darlene Gillespie, who had shown great promise among the "Mickey Mouse Club" cast as a singer. Camarata assembled a new orchestra and chorus (possibly with the cooperation of Norman Luboff, as Betty Mulliner (Luboff) and choir member Thurl Ravenscroft can be heard) in the Capitol studios in Hollywood. The resulting album became one of the most influential and acclaimed studio versions of a score, garnering praise from within the industry as well as the public. The original issue (WDL-4025) depicting Alice seated in a tree with characters beneath her is highly collectible but the album was so popular  it was reissued in 1959, 1963 and 1968 with different covers, as well as story albums with books and single records, all featuring music from this album, as well in translated versions of the Camarata "Alice" music for international recordings. To date, the only soundtrack material ever made available on vinyl records was released outside the United States. In the late nineties, over 45 years after the film's original release, a soundtrack album of "Alice in Wonderland" was finally released in the U.S. on Audio CD by Walt Disney Records. Songs. Original songs performed in the film include: Songs  written for the film but deleted during production include: Release. "Alice in Wonderland" premiered at the Leicester Square Theatre in London on July 26, 1951. During the film's initial theatrical run, the film was released as a double feature with the "True-Life Adventures" documentary short, "Nature's Half Acre". Following the film's initial lukewarm reception, it was never re-released theatrically in Disney's lifetime, instead being shown occasionally on television. "Alice in Wonderland" aired as the second episode of the "Walt Disney's Disneyland" television series on ABC on November 3, 1954, in a severely edited  version cut down to less than an hour. Beginning in 1971, the film was screened in several sold-out venues at college campuses, becoming the most rented film in some cities. Then, in 1974, Disney gave "Alice in Wonderland" its first theatrical re-release. The company even promoted it as a film in tune with the "psychedelic times", using radio commercials featuring the song "White Rabbit" performed by Jefferson Airplane. This release was so successful that it warranted a subsequent re-release in 1981. Its first UK re-release was on July 26, 1979. Marketing. Disney sought to use the  new medium of television to help advertise "Alice in Wonderland". In March 1950, he spoke to his brother Roy about launching a television program featuring the studio's animated shorts. Roy agreed, and later that summer they spoke to the Coca-Cola Company about sponsoring an hour-long Christmas broadcast featuring Disney hosting several cartoons and a scene from the upcoming film. The program became "One Hour in Wonderland", which was aired on NBC on Christmas Day 1950. At the same time, a ten-minute featurette about the making of the film, "Operation: Wonderland", was produced and screened in theaters  and on television stations. Additionally, Disney, Kathryn Beaumont, and Sterling Holloway appeared on "The Fred Waring Show" on March 18, 1951, to promote the film. Home media. "Alice in Wonderland" was one of the first titles available for the rental market on VHS and Beta and for retail sale on RCA's short-lived CED Videodisc format. The film was released on October 15, 1981, on VHS, CED Videodisc, and Betamax and again on May 28, 1986, on VHS, Betamax, and Laserdisc. In January 2000, Walt Disney Home Video launched the Gold Classic Collection, with "Alice in Wonderland" re-released  on VHS and DVD on July 4, 2000. The DVD contained the "Operation: Wonderland" featurette, several sing-a-long videos, a storybook, a trivia game, and its theatrical trailer. A fully restored two-disc "Masterpiece Edition" was released on January 27, 2004, including the full hour-long episode of the Disney television show with Kathryn Beaumont, Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, Bobby Driscoll and others that promoted the film, computer games, deleted scenes, songs and related materials, which was discontinued in January 2009. Disney released a 2-disc special "Un-Anniversary" edition DVD on March 30, 2010, in  order to promote the recent Tim Burton version. The film was released in a Blu-ray and DVD set on February 1, 2011, to celebrate its 60th anniversary, featuring a new HD restoration of the movie and many bonus features. Disney re-released the film on Blu-ray and DVD on April 26, 2016, to celebrate the film's 65th anniversary. The film was released on Disney+ on November 12, 2019. Reception. Box office. During its initial theatrical run, the film grossed $2.4 million in domestic rentals. Because of the film's production budget of $3 million, the  studio wrote off a million-dollar loss. During its theatrical re-release in 1974, the film grossed $3.5 million in domestic rentals. Critical reaction. Despite being regarded as one of Disney's best animated films today, and gaining a large following, the initial reviews for "Alice in Wonderland" were very negative. Bosley Crowther, reviewing for "The New York Times", complimented that "...if you are not too particular about the images of Carroll and Tenniel, if you are high on Disney whimsey and if you'll take a somewhat slow, uneven pace, you should find this picture entertaining. Especially should  it be for the kids, who are not so demanding of fidelity as are their moms and dads. A few of the episodes are dandy, such as the mad tea party and the caucus race; the music is tuneful and sugary and the color is excellent." "Variety" wrote that the film "has an earnest charm and a chimerical beauty that best shows off the Carroll fantasy. However, it has not been able to add any real heart or warmth, ingredients missing from the two tomes and which have always been an integral part of the previous Disney feature cartoons." Mae  Tinee of the "Chicago Tribune" wrote that "While the Disney figures do resemble John Tenniel's famous sketches, they abound in energy but are utterly lacking in enchantment, and seem more closely related to Pluto, the clumsy pup, than the products of Carroll's imagination. Youngsters probably will find it a likable cartoon, full of lively characters, with Alice's dream bedecked with just a touch of nightmare—those who cherish the old story as I have probably will be distinctly disappointed." "Time" stated that "Judged simply as the latest in the long, popular line of Disney cartoons, "Alice" lacks  a developed story line, which the studio's continuity experts, for all their freedom with scissors and paste, have been unable to put together out of the episodic books. Much of it is familiar stuff; Carroll's garden of live flowers prompts Disney to revive the style of his "Silly Symphonies". Yet there is plenty to delight youngsters, and there are flashes of cartooning ingenuity that should appeal to grownups." "Alice in Wonderland" was met with great criticism from Carroll fans, as well as from British film and literary critics, who accused Disney of "Americanizing" a great work of English  literature. Walt Disney was not surprised by the critical reception to "Alice in Wonderland"—his version of "Alice" was intended for large family audiences, not literary critics—but despite all the long years of thought and effort Disney invested in it, the film met with a lukewarm response at the box office and was a sharp disappointment in its initial release. Additionally, he remarked that the film failed because it lacked heart. In "The Disney Films", Leonard Maltin says that animator Ward Kimball felt the film failed because "it suffered from too many cooks—directors. Here was a case of five  directors each trying to top the other guy and make his sequence the biggest and craziest in the show. This had a self-canceling effect on the final product." On the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "Alice in Wonderland" received an approval rating of from critical reviews with an average rating of . The consensus states, "A good introduction to Lewis Carroll's classic, "Alice in Wonderland" boasts some of the Disney canon's most surreal and twisted images." Awards and accolades. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, but lost to "An  American in Paris". Legacy. Stage version. "Alice in Wonderland" has been condensed into a one-act stage version entitled, "Alice in Wonderland, Jr". The stage version is solely meant for middle and high school productions and includes the majority of the film's songs and others including "Song of the South"s "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", two new reprises of "I'm Late!", and three new numbers entitled "Ocean of Tears", "Simon Says", and "Who Are You?" respectively. This 60–80 minute version is licensed by Music Theatre International in the Broadway, Jr. Collection along with other Disney Theatrical shows such  as "Disney's Aladdin, Jr.", "Disney's Mulan, Jr.", "Beauty and the Beast", Disney's "High School Musical: On Stage!", Elton John and Tim Rice's "Aida", and many more. Spin-off. On October 25, 2019, an undetermined animated project focused on the Cheshire Cat is being developed for Disney's subscription video on-demand streaming service, Disney+. On May 11, 2021, it was announced a CGI-animated TV series "Alice's Wonderland Bakery" will be released on Disney Junior in 2022. The series will center on Alice, the great-granddaughter of the original heroine. Live action remakes. A live -action re-imagining, "Alice in Wonderland", was released in 2010, starring Mia Wasikowska as Alice. It was directed by Tim Burton and received mixed reviews, but grossed over $1 billion. A sequel, "Alice Through the Looking Glass", was released in 2016 to generally negative reviews and a $299 million gross on a $170 million budget. Theme parks. Costumed versions of Alice, The Mad Hatter, The White Rabbit, The Queen of Hearts, Tweedledum, and Tweedledee make regular appearances at the Disney theme parks and resorts, and other characters from the film (including the Walrus and the March Hare ) have featured in the theme parks, although quite rarely. Disneyland features a ride-through visit to Wonderland onboard a Caterpillar-shaped ride vehicle; this adventure is unique to Disneyland and has not been reproduced at Disney's other parks. More famously, all five Disneyland-style theme parks feature Mad Tea Party, a teacups ride based on Disney's adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland". "Alice in Wonderland" is also frequently featured in many parades and shows in the Disney Theme Parks, including The Main Street Electrical Parade, SpectroMagic, "Fantasmic!", Dreamlights, The Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party and Walt  Disney's Parade of Dreams. Disneyland contains a dark ride based on the film in addition to the teacups, and Disneyland Paris also contains a hedge maze called Alice's Curious Labyrinth, which takes its inspiration from the film. The now-defunct Mickey Mouse Revue, shown at Walt Disney World and later at Tokyo Disneyland, contained characters and scenes from the film. Video games. In "Disney's Villains' Revenge", the Queen of Hearts is one of the villains who tries to turn the ending to her story to where she finally cuts off Alice's head. "Mickey Mousecapade" features various  characters from the film. The Japanese version, in fact, is based very heavily on the film, with almost every reference in the game coming from the film. A video game version of the film was released on Game Boy Color by Nintendo of America on October 4, 2000, in North America. Additionally, in the video games "Kingdom Hearts" and "", Wonderland is a playable world. Alice is also a major character in the overall plot of the first game due to her role as one of seven "Princesses of Heart". Other characters from the movie that appear include the Queen of  Hearts, the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, the Doorknob, the Caterpillar (V Cast only), and the Deck of Cards. The Mad Hatter and the March Hare appear in portrait form as well. All except the Doorknob also appear in "Chain of Memories", albeit in the form of illusions made from the main character's memory. While the world is absent in "Kingdom Hearts II", it returns in "Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days" and "Kingdom Hearts coded", the latter featuring a digitized version of the world originating from data in Jiminy Cricket's royal journal. In "", the Mad Hatter's hat is  one of the hats you can have the townsfolk wear. In "Kinect Disneyland Adventures", Alice, Mad Hatter, White Rabbit, and the Queen of Hearts make appearances. In "Disney Infinity", there are power discs based on Alice in Wonderland. Several characters of the movie make appearances throughout the Epic Mickey-games. For example, the cards are seen throughout Mickeyjunk Mountain in the original "Epic Mickey", Alice appears as a statue carrying a projector screen in "Epic Mickey 2" and Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Cheshire Cat appear as unlockable characters in "". Cover versions. The theme song of the same name  has since become a jazz standard by the likes of Roberta Gambarini, Bill Evans and Dave Brubeck.