ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1951) Retro Movie Review (MY FAVORITE MOVIE OF THE SILVER AGE)
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- "CINDERELLA" wasn't a great start to the third age of Disney animation, but thankfully we have this movie! This is my review for "ALICE IN WONDERLAND" starring Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna, Verna Felton, J. Pat O'Malley, Bill Thompson, Joseph Kearns, Dink Trout, James MacDonald, directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske
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#AliceinWonderland #WaltDisneyAnimation #LewisCarroll
Another thing that's great about Alice in Wonderland, but sadly, no longer exists in the movie is... at one point, they were considering giving The Chesire Cat his own song, and... this was the song...
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The Chesire Cat's my favorite Alice in Wonderland character, and I think this song fits him perfectly. It captures his wacky personality as well as his pension for mischief. And it's easy to picture Alice getting freaked out as he performs this song. Sadly though, they had to cut the song out, because they were having trouble figuring out how they were gonna work in: "The Jabberwocky" poem. At one point they thought about maybe doing it as a big musical number, but finally, just decided to have The Chesire Cat sing it. But when that decision was made, that meant they had to cut out this song. It wasn't until years later, this song was rediscovered and Jim Cummings sang this rendition of it. Well, all I can say is:
If only this song hadn't been cut out of the movie, it definitely would've fit in perfectly, within this movie.
Also, some more interesting trivia on Alice in Wonderland:
The Queen of Hearts is voiced by: "Verna Felton", who had previously worked with Disney on: "Dumbo", and "Cinderella". She voiced the leader of the elephants in Dumbo, and voiced The Fairy Godmother in Cinderella. And Disney would work with her again on: "Lady & The Tramp", in which she did Aunt Sarah's voice.
And then Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, The Walrus, and The Carpenter, are all voiced by: "J. Pat O'Malley", who Disney would work with again on The Jungle Book, as the voice of Colonel Hathi.
And then both The White Rabbit and The Dodo are voiced by: "Bill Thompson", who Disney would work with again on: "Peter Pan", as the voice of Smee, and the entire pirate crew.
Also, Alice's sister was voiced by a woman going under the name of: "Heather Angel", and Disney would work with her again on Peter Pan as the voice of Mrs. Darling.
But like you Alex, I love Alice in Wonderland, because I grew up with it. And on the VHS tape I had of it, they would always show this at the very end...
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...my favorite part of: "Operation Wonderland" is when Walt is putting the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum drawings into the animation cel. It's funny because when I was a kid, I use to think that was how you developed pictures. You put them into that machine, and when it went: "DING!", BOOM! It was a picture. Because again, I was a kid, and when we're kids, we think stupid things.
But yeah, that's how they make those drawings move in hand drawn animated movies. They put them into an animation cel one after the other, which takes pictures of them, and then they just edit all those pictures together to give them movement. Man, that's so cool. An animation cel is such a cool device.
It's also fun to see Ed Wynn play The Mad Hatter. It honestly sorta makes it a shame that he's dead, because he seemed like a really funny guy, and really really talented. I would've loved to have met him.
This has always been my favorite Disney cartoon as a kid by far, I watched it so much that I wore out the tape and it broke in my VCR. It was very telling because I love surreal arthouse movies that don't really have a story and I also love drugs lol
I have the movie on DVD.
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I like this movie, but its a little bit crazy, weird and all over the place in my taste, but its very enjoyable movie.
Mad Hatter is my favorite character of the movie.
Great review Alex and take care and stay safe 👍.
I once saw a review for “Frankenweenie” by FilmMasterAdam and when he talked about Tim Burton, he said that he hated the original “Alice in Wonderland” both the animated movie and the book, sighting the lack of a proper story as his main reason and that he prefers Tim Burton’s live action version for having a focused story. Also, in terms of Alice herself, the video game series Kingdom Hearts gave Alice a bigger role in the first games story by having her as one of the Seven Princesses of Pure Light in spite of not being a Princess herself.
🤦🏻♂️
@@AlexanderRobinsonMovieReviews My mom is not fond of the original movie either.
@@tedgruver7618 That is the case of with my mom as well. I can kinda both sides on why someone would either like or dislike the movie. There is almost no middle ground
Good luck when you review Peter Pan. Because you've already criticized Fantasia and Dumbo for being racist, and Peter Pan has a couple of racist moments in it as well. Only this time, it's not racist against black people, it's racist against Native Americans.
For example, when John and The Lost Boys are gonna capture the Indians, John's telling The Lost Boys: "Now remember, Indians are cunning, but not intelligent."
On top of that, The Indian Chief is voiced by a white guy. His name's: "Candy Candino", and he's also the same guy who voiced the apple trees in The Wizard of Oz. And he would later work with Disney again on: "Sleeping Beauty", to voice Maleficent's goons. So, you have a white guy voicing a Native American Chief, talking in Native American slang.
And then to add even more insult to injury, his wife is voiced by: "June Foray". June Foray is a voice actress who did the voice for Rocky in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Granny in The Looney Tunes, and had previous worked with Disney on Cinderella, providing the voice for Lucifer the Cat. And she would work with Disney again to voice both Lena Heyena as well as one of The Weasels in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And in Peter Pan, she voices the mermaids, as well as The Indian Chief's wife, in which she says the lines: "Squaw, no dance. Squaw gets em firewood!" And June Foray is a white woman, so you have a white woman, voicing a Native American woman, talking in Native American slang.
And then on top of that, they start making some of the other characters talk in Native American slang. They make Wendy talk in Native American slang, they make John talk in Native American slang, they make Michael talk in Native American slang, they make The Lost Boys talk in Native American slang, they even make Peter talk in Native American slang. And not only that, but they're singing: "Hanna Manda Ganda", they're whooping like Native Americans, and they're saying: "How." It's like: "Great, you're forcing kids to be racist. Are you proud of yourself, Disney?!"
And then there's the song: "What Makes the Red Man Red?" which... like Song of the Rostabouts, is catchy, if you're not paying attention to the lyrics, but if you are paying attention to the lyrics, that's where all the problems come from. For example:
"Why does he ask you how? Once the Injun didn't know all the things that he know now. But the Injun can sure learn a lot, and it's all from asking: 'How'."
Or:
"When did he first say: 'Ugh'? In the Injun book it say when first mate married squaw, he gave out a great big: 'UGH!', when he saw his mother-in-law." Yeah, that's problematic right there.
And then:
"What made the Red Man red? Let's go back a million years to the very first Injun Prince. He kissed a maid, and started to blush, and we've all been blushing since. Now you've got it right from the head man, the real true story of the red man, no matter what's been written or said, now you know why the red man red." WOW!
It just makes you go: "WHY?!"
I know you love Peter Pan Alex, and don't get me wrong, I love it too, but like Fantasia and Dumbo, the racist stuff in it can really make you cringe.
In fact the Native American communities of the time were so outraged and insulted that they boycotted this movie and the only member of the village of this movie that was not voice acted is Tiger Lily, the chief’s daughter, who also appears to be the one Native American in her village that at least looks the most normal and not offensive. Also, the way they made the chief talk…🤦♂️ Totally insulting and an unholy misunderstanding of various Native American dialects.
I enjoyed Alice in Wonderland but I seen it only once and I haven't seen Tim Burton's version.
I have. But it's been a while
The success of Cinderella gave Walt the opportunity to bring back to life several concepts of films he wanted to make ever since the 30's. And if you want proof of that, in the opening of Pinocchio, when Jiminy sings: "When You Wish Upon a Star", if you look at the top left corner, there was a book that teased this movie because Disney had this movie in store at the time, and now with his newfound Cinderella money, he could finally open the book.
Disney had always had a fascination with the Alice in Wonderland books. That's why he made the Alice comedies. In: "1933", he had the idea of making an entire Alice in Wonderland movie based on the books in a similar format to the Alice comedies, starring a live action girl in a cartoon world. However, that exact same year, Paramount had released their own Alice in Wonderland movie, so Walt decided to scrap that idea in favor of making Snow White his first movie. But the idea of an Alice in Wonderland adaptation, never left Walt. In fact, he had Mickey Mouse star in a loose adaptation in 1936 called: "Mickey Through the Mirror".
After the success of Snow White, Disney decided to move fully forward with an Alice in Wonderland movie. His storyboard artist: "Al Perkins", was given the task of determining an entire story. The result came in a 1939 story reel that Disney didn't like. What he saw in that reel was nothing but problems. Well... at least... in terms of making his version of the story. While Al's screenplay did stay true to the book, it was way too dark by Disney standards. Fixing that up would require A LOT of work.
However, as time went on, and the 40's were giving the studios a hard time with the box office bombs, Disney had no choice but to let go of the project. He brought the project back shortly after the war ended, but he didn't approve any of the versions that were pitched to him. That was until he noticed the unique artwork of one of his artists: "Mary Blair", who began working for Disney in 1940, on movies like: "Fantasia", and "Dumbo". Her artwork was very colorful and very stylized and that caught Walt's attention and he decided to make her artwork more prominent in his animated movies afterwards with: "Saludos Amigos", and "The Three Caballeros". She was also the conceptual artist for: "Cinderella". And she had done some concept art for Alice in Wonderland and seeing her artwork, Walt realized how he could truly tell the Alice in Wonderland story. It doesn't have to go by the book, it could be a lot more colorful and whimsical. So he decided to make it an all-animated movie.
Since it combine elements from both books, there were characters that had to be taken out for the sake of pacing. However, some were close to consideration like: "The Duchess", "The Jabberwoky", and "The White Knight".
As usual, live action references were made to help the animators. In those live action references, there was one moment that stood out from the rest that actually ended up in the final movie. Since many of the voice actors always lent a hand in the references, vaudeville actor: "Ed Wynn", was brought into voice The Mad Hatter, and he unleashed a performance that made everyone laugh. But when he was brought back in to rerecord the Mad Tea Party scene, they realized that they couldn't recapture the magic from that filming. So for the final cut, they decided to use the audio directly from the live action reference.
While the movie was close to finishing, Walt gained interest in the new entertainment medium called: "Television". Walt realized he could use television as a marketing device to highly present any of his big upcoming projects. So on Christmas Day, 1950, he released his very first TV special: "One Hour in Wonderland", which was sponsored by Coca Cola. It presented many cartoons, as well as a peek of the film, and featured Disney along with Alice's voice actress: "Kathryn Beaumont". However, that wasn't the movie's piece of promotion. They also made a 10 minute TV documentary on the making of the movie called: "Operation Wonderland". They had also a special segment dedicated to the movie on: "The Fred Waring Show".
After its premiere on July 26, 1951, it... yeah... there's no going around this. It sucked. While the critics didn't necessarily hate the movie, they felt the quality of the film was more in line with Disney's cartoons than their movies. But when it came to fans of the books, they hated the film. They claimed that Disney destroyed a classic piece of literature by completely Americanizing it. Even Disney himself didn't care for the film either as he felt it lacked heart. It wasn't helped by the fact that the film bombed at the box office, only making $2.4,000,000, losing the company a million dollars.
Everything about the film's release was a mess. However, despite the movie's criticisms, it did receive an Oscar Nomination for Best Scoring in a Musical Picture.
There's an ending that I did see coming, because I don't know, I don't know how Disney did it, 'cause when I first the cartoon on Disney+ there's an ending we're Alice was dreaming the whole time, and it still blows my mind and it caught me off guard, because there's an outcome. Coincidence? I think NOT!
I actually liked Alice In Wonderland 2010.