Alice in Wonderland (1933)

In conjunction with Lewis Carroll's 100th birthday, and in an attempt to rescue their failing movie studio, Paramount Pictures gathered all of its movie stars and resources for one epic version of the Alice stories.  Unfortunately, hiding all of their actors behind giant animal masks did not draw in the crowds and scathing reviews only hurt the film further, preventing any major studio from ever attempting a live action Alice in Wonderland again until 2010's Tim Burton film.

The original preview runtime was 90 minutes but from what I can gather, this was trimmed to 77 minutes soon after for the actual run.  Some sources say the shortening was for the television edit, but a 90-minute version seems to be forever lost.  Apparently, the 13 minutes that were cut out involved a live action "Father William" sequence and various lines here and there.  The most notable cuts occur during the Mad Tea Party scene which is very rushed.  So, we must accept this 77 min version as the true one.

This is the first adaptation so far that actually feels like a movie, rather than an amateur production, and it's evident that a lot of care went into making this both faithful and entertaining.  Both Wonderland and Looking-Glass are incorporated into one cohesive storyline, with Looking-Glass scenes serving as the bookends.  Every character is played by a big-name star (for the time) with newcomer Charlotte Henry performing as Alice.

Original Source Breakdown

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chapter I: Down the Rabbit Hole - MOSTLY INTACT/ALTERED
The movie actually begins with the Looking-Glass opening chapter and it is once Alice has explored the Looking-Glass House that she makes her way outside and follows the White Rabbit down the hole.  An interesting change is that the "Drink Me" bottle makes Alice larger rather than smaller, so she cries and forms the Pool of Tears earlier, then the "Eat Me" cake shrinks her.

Chapter II: The Pool of Tears - MOSTLY REMOVED/ALTERED
Since the bottle and cake's effects were switched, Alice no longer needs the Rabbit's fan to shrink.  The Pool of Tears is more like a puddle, yet Alice still manages to slip and fall in.  She calls to the Mouse in French and scares it off by discussing her cat Dinah.  (It seems some lines were cut from this section.)

Chapter III: The Caucus-Race and a Long Tale - MOSTLY REMOVED/ALTERED

Only the Dodo meets with Alice after she comes ashore.  The Dodo takes over the Mouse's duties of drying Alice with a history lesson and it succeeds in drying her, eliminating the need for the Caucus-Race.

Chapter IV: The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill - REMOVED

Chapter V: Advice from a Caterpillar - MOSTLY REMOVED
Had "Father William" remained from the original cut, this would be a mostly intact scene.  The Caterpillar's conversation with Alice is completely as it is in the book.  Alice does not encounter the pigeon when she grows.

Chapter VI: Pig and Pepper - INTACT
Some minor dialogue cuts here and there (including the "We're all mad here" exchange) but otherwise, the scene is very accurate, with the Duchess even going so far as to spank the baby during her lullaby to make the Baby sing the "Wow! Wow! Wow!" part of the song.

Chapter VII: A Mad Tea Party - MOSTLY INTACT
The Dormouse's story is not included and dialogue appears to have been edited out.  But "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat" is presented in full.

Chapter VIII: The Queen's Croquet-Ground - MOSTLY REMOVED/ALTERED
The Queen and King of Hearts's relationship is really pushed to the extreme, as the Queen of Hearts can't seem to stop saying "Off with her/his head," even when it doesn't fit in the context of what's happening.  The King deliberately tricks her by waving the executioners away so no one is in danger of losing their head.  The Knave doesn't appear, but a cute baby Joker card does.  The Cat doesn't reappear during the croquet game, even though he said he would in his scene (Maybe this was another cut?).  The croquet game seems to actually use live flamingos and guinea pigs (rather than hedgehogs).

Chapter IX: The Mock Turtle's Story - MOSTLY INTACT
Alice chats with the Duchess and then the Queen.  Both are scared off by the Gryphon, instead of the Queen ordering the Gryphon about as in the book.  The Mock Turtle tells most of his story as usual.

Chapter X: The Lobster-Quadrille - MOSTLY REMOVED/ALTERED
The Mock Turtle only sings "Beautiful Soup" and nothing else and then the Gryphon suddenly takes Alice away, running very fast.  The Gryphon transforms into the Red Queen while running, transitioning the film into the Looking-Glass section.

Chapter XI: Who Stole the Tarts? - REMOVED
Chapter XII: Alice's Evidence - REMOVED

Through the Looking-Glass

Chapter I: Looking-Glass House - MOSTLY INTACT/ALTERED

The movie actually begins here, with Alice waiting with her cat Dinah by the fireplace on a snowy day.  She is constantly reprimanded by her governess Miss Simpson (not in the books) for her imaginative lies and stories.  Alice plays with the chess pieces for a bit, complaining of boredom and entertaining herself with thoughts of the Looking-Glass Room, before falling asleep in the armchair.  She then enters the Looking-Glass Room, talks to the pictures and the clock (which she only saw were alive in the book), and helps the chessmen who have fallen by the fireplace and gotten separated.  She doesn't read "Jabberwocky," though she mentions having read it later in the film (another deleted scene?).  She floats out of the house and into the garden outside.

Chapter II: The Garden of Live Flowers - MOSTLY REMOVED

Picking up after the Mock Turtle scene, Alice finds herself running with the Red Queen, who explains the rules of the chess world to her, as well as the rules of proper manners.

Chapter III: Looking-Glass Insects - REMOVED

Chapter IV: Tweedledum and Tweedledee - MOSTLY INTACT

Alice meets Dee and Dum who tell her the story of "The Walrus and the Carpenter" which is presented in cartoon form.  They don't observe the Red King or talk about the nature of dreams, but they do have their battle over the broken rattle and are frightened away by the giant crow.

Chapter V: Wool and Water - MOSTLY REMOVED

Alice meets up with the White Queen and helps her with her shawl.  After observing some of her eccentric backwards behavior, the White Queen becomes an old Sheep in a shop who promptly sells Alice an egg.  A very rushed version of this chapter.

Chapter VI: Humpty Dumpty - MOSTLY INTACT

The egg becomes Humpty Dumpty and he has is usual conversation with Alice.  The story he tells her is removed and he deliberately does not explain the meaning of the words in "Jabberwocky" to her.  One wonders why she even brought it up if the movie wasn't going to address it.  Maybe it was an inside joke to the fact that the Jabberwocky scene got cut.

Chapter VII: The Lion and the Unicorn - MOSTLY REMOVED

Alice runs into the White King who has sent all of his horses and men to put Humpty back together again.  She does not meet his Messengers nor the Lion and the Unicorn as she does in the book.

Chapter VIII: "It's My Own Invention" - MOSTLY INTACT

Except for his battle with the Red Knight and his"Aged Man" poem, the White Knight encounter and conversation is exactly as it is in the book.  This may also be the longest scene in the film.

Chapter IX: Queen Alice - MOSTLY INTACT

Alice enters the Eighth Square to become a Queen and the other two Queens of the chessboard start testing her skills.  She makes her way into the castle where everyone in Wonderland is there to greet her with the feast.  The song, the food introductions, and the calculated mayhem that occurs as Alice starts waking up happen exactly as the do in the book, which was some great attention to detail.

Chapter X, XI, XII: Shaking, Waking, and Which Dreamed It?: MOSTLY INTACT

Alice gets in a scuffle with the Red Queen who becomes her own cat as she wakes up in amazement at the crazy dream she had just had.

Review:

I wasn't sure what to expect out of this film.  I had always known it to be the first big Alice movie, but with such terrible reviews, I was expecting the worst.  As it stands, I'm not sure it exactly melds into a cohesive whole film, but each individual scene works well on its own.

First off, I instantly noticed that this felt like the first real film adaptation of the story.  The music, the scenery, and the actors are all higher quality and there is a lot of attention to detail that the previous adaptations lacked.  By combining both books together, the screenwriters (who had borrowed from a recent stage adaptation) did their best to make everything feel as if it came from one complete story.  I'm of the personal belief that Looking-Glass is the better structured of the two books, so using that as the primary basis was a smart choice.

Maybe it was because this was the first adaptation to use the second book in a major way, but I actually found myself thoroughly entertained by the scenes of the second half more than the scenes of the first.  All of the Looking-Glass scenes were very well handled, especially W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Edna May Oliver as the Red Queen, and especially Gary Cooper as the White Knight.  I found his scene to be the highlight of the whole film and genuinely affecting.  Part of me wishes that the film had only been a straightforward adaptation of Looking-Glass and had allowed those scenes to be more fully explored.

But that would take out some of the Wonderland scenes I enjoyed, such as Cary Grant's ridiculous Mock Turtle (who the critics hated, but I found to be hilariously out of character for him) and Ned Sparks as the Caterpillar (the best of the early scenes).  I think that what the filmmaker should have done was used Looking-Glass as the overall framework and structure of the film and inserted Wonderland moments when necessary.  Alice travels from the Second to the Eighth Square to become a queen which is such a clearly defined goal.  It was jarring to have her begin this journey 45 minutes into the film, especially since she started with the chessmen at the very beginning of the movie.  I know they wanted to follow the books in order, but it's okay to move the scenes around.

The real downfall of the film is the grotesque masks that most of the actors have to wear.  The Duchess, Cook, and Tweedles will really give you nightmare, and everyone else is hidden by animal faces.  It would have looked better to see the actors real faces.  Except Humpty Dumpty.  He was deservedly creepy.

Overall, I ended up enjoying this film much more than I expected.  Charlotte Henry, despite being a 19-year-old playing a 12-year-old Alice was the first actress I've seen who plays the character the way she is meant to be played.  And those later scenes really kept me entertained, even though they were just sticking to the original dialogue.  It didn't feel like people were just reading the book to me, but it was actually coming alive.  I may not watch the whole film again the whole way through, but I'll definitely watch my favorite scenes again!

4 out of 5 Hollywood Stars