Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Walt Disney was always a fan of Alice in Wonderland and it showed throughout his early creative works.  His first main series of cartoons were live-action in which a real-world girl named Alice would dream herself into cartoon scenarios.  For his first animated feature film in the 1930s, he had wanted to produce an Alice in Wonderland movie using the same concept, but the project went through many changes and styles until ultimately becoming the full animated version seen in 1951.

The animators felt that the film should be a "Best of the Books" version of the story, with many characters, scenes, and songs pitched and designed.  Of every animated film Disney worked on in his lifetime, this film would have the most created and cut content.  After many attempts to change the story to add more of a narrative flow (including love subplots or Dinah turning into the Cheshire Cat to guide Alice the whole way through), the movie played it simple by doing a straightforward adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with a handful of Looking-Glass moments peppered in.

Critics initially derided the film, claiming it was unfaithful in tone to the original stories, and it amassed a small audience.  It wasn't until much later in the 1970s that the film was revived in popular culture and became considered to be one of Disney's classic films.  To this day, many elements from the 1951 Disney film are how people picture Alice in Wonderland and, personally, it was my introduction to the story at age 3.

Original Source Breakdown

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chapter I: Down the Rabbit Hole - MOSTLY INTACT/ALTERED
The film starts as the book does, though Alice plays with Dinah and sings to herself about how she wish she could have a nonsense world of her own to explore and play in.  When she gets to the Hall of Doors, the small door Alice tries to get through has a talking Doorknob on it that explains the rules of the room (key, table, potion, cakes).  This makes it so Alice isn't constantly talking to herself.

Chapter II: The Pool of Tears - MOSTLY REMOVED/ALTERED
When Alice cries and floods the room, the Doorknob insists that she drink from the bottle again to shrink.  Alice does so and falls into the bottle, which is carried by a wave through the Doorknob's keyhole mouth.  Alice spots several creatures swimming in the pool, including a singing sailor-like Dodo, but no Mouse (however, the Mouse's fear of cats is later incorporated into the Dormouse, and his history lesson is the book that Alice's sister reads at the beginning).

Chapter III: The Caucus-Race and a Long Tale - MOSTLY REMOVED/ALTERED
When Alice comes ashore, the Dodo is already leading the Caucus-Race which manages to get the animals dry, despite constant waves hitting the participants.

Chapter IV: The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill - MOSTLY INTACT/ALTERED
After Alice grows in the Rabbit's house (becoming so large that all her limbs protrude from windows and doors), the Rabbit enlists the help of the passing Dodo (rather than his gardener Pat) who takes charge and suggests sending down Bill the Lizard and burning down the house.  Bill get sneezed out of the chimney, rather than kicked, and Alice eats one of the Rabbit's carrots to shrink herself out.  She then chases after the White Rabbit who leaves in a hurry.

Chapter V: Advice from a Caterpillar - MOSTLY INTACT/ALTERED
Alice meets with the Caterpillar, but rather than reciting "Father William" (which was sung by Tweedledee and Tweedledum earlier), she listens to the Caterpillar recite "How Doth the Little Crocodile" (which Alice originally recited in Chapter I).  The Caterpillar turns into a Butterfly before he leaves.  Alice then interacts with the Pigeon after growing large (which hasn't been featured in an adaptation yet).

Chapter VI: Pig and Pepper - MOSTLY REMOVED
Only Alice's conversation with the Cheshire Cat remains from this chapter.  Alice asks for his help to track down the White Rabbit, but he doesn't offer much help in that department.  (Some of the Queen of Hearts's personality and dialogue is based on the Duchess.)

Chapter VII: A Mad Tea Party - MOSTLY INTACT/ALTERED
Lines and moments get shifted around a lot in this scene.  Alice tells her story about her adventures and Dinah (combining elements from the Mock Turtle scene and the Mouse scene).  The Rabbit joins the party briefly and it is his watch that breaks and gets fixed with tea and butter, rather than the Hatter's watch.  And the Dormouse sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat" instead of telling his story.

Chapter VIII: The Queen's Croquet-Ground - MOSTLY INTACT/ALTERED
After getting lost following the party, the Cheshire Cat directs her to the door in the tree to the gardens.  Alice helps the gardners paint the roses red, but does not succeed in saving them from execution.  In fact, all the Queen's sentences of beheading seem to go unpardoned by the King (who is much smaller in stature than his wife).  During the croquet game, the Cheshire Cat reappears, but only shows himself to Alice, causing her a great deal of trouble with the Queen.

Chapter IX: The Mock Turtle's Story - REMOVED
Chapter X: The Lobster-Quadrille - REMOVED
While everything from these chapters are cut, the Disney characters of the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon were created and used in a commercial for JELL-O where we see what the scene would have looked like.  Alice discusses cooking options with the duo at a cafe table by the seashore and the Mock Turtle laments that he never learned to cook during his schooling.

Chapter XI: Who Stole the Tarts? - ALTERED
Instead of having the Knave accused of stolen tarts, Alice is on trial for embarrassing the Queen.  The witnesses are the Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse who have a lot of fun at the Queen's expense.

Chapter XII: Alice's Evidence - ALTERED
The Cheshire Cat reappears to get Alice in further trouble with the Queen, and Alice eats both mushroom pieces to grow larger than everyone.  But just after she tells off the Queen, she shrinks back to her usual size and a chase sequence ensues.  Alice finds herself running through many of the previous scenes and seeks help from all the characters she had met.  Finally, she works her way back to the Doorknob who informs her that she is asleep and must wake up.  She does so and goes home for tea with her sister.

Through the Looking-Glass

Chapter I: Looking-Glass House - REFERENCED

The Cheshire Cat sings the first verse of "Jabberwocky" whenever he appears.  And after the Mad Tea Party, Alice gets lost in the Tulgey Wood from the poem and encounters some of the creatures to be found within (although not the Jabberwock itself which was planned to appear here along side the White Knight who would protect her).  Alice sings a song about not following her "Very Good Advice" and it's quite sad, before the Cheshire Cat shows up to direct her to the Queen's garden.

Chapter II: The Garden of Live Flowers - MOSTLY REMOVED/ALTERED

After escaping the Rabbit's house while shrunk, Alice encounters the Talking Flowers who sing "Golden Afternoon" to her.  Once the flowers conclude that she is a sort of weed, Alice is kicked out of the flower bed, and she makes her way to the Caterpillar. (And the Queen of Hearts borrows a lot of the Red Queen's dialogue from this chapter.)

Chapter III: Looking-Glass Insects - REFERENCED

The Bread-and-Butterflies and Rocking-Horsefly from this chapter make an appearance in the Talking Flower Bed, alongside some new insect puns.

Chapter IV: Tweedledum and Tweedledee - MOSTLY INTACT

The Tweedles introduce themselves to Alice after she escapes the Caucus-Race.  As Alice is in a hurry to find the White Rabbit, they try many tactics to stall her, suggesting they could have a battle (as the actually did in the book).  They settle on telling her "The Walrus and the Carpenter" which is also mostly intact, except the Walrus tricks the Carpenter so he eats all the Oysters.  The interaction with the sleeping Red King is not present (of course, since none of the chess elements are), but one could view the conversation with the Doorknob at the end as being a reference to this moment.

Chapter VI: Humpty Dumpty - REFERENCED

Humpty Dumpty was also supposed to appear in this film.  Instead, only his conversation about Unbirthdays survived and was moved to the Mad Tea Party scene, where it turned into a song which became a key element of the tea-drinking-trio.  The Unbirthday Song reappears during Alice's trial.

Review:

I may be biased since this was my very first introduction to Alice in Wonderland on my 3rd birthday, but this is the film that started my passion for the stories in the first place.  While critics and scholars may dislike it for straying from the book too much in style and content, I feel it is a perfect way to discover the world of Wonderland.  I owned the original books and enjoyed looking at the pictures, comparing them to the film and once I was old enough to actually read and appreciate the books, I felt this film provided a nice framework to guide my understanding by.

But even without the nostalgia, I honestly feel this movie does the best job of capturing the spirit of the original while also being its own work of art in its own right.  While most adaptations feel too rushed as they try to include everything from the books, Disney and his team actually took the care to add that into the frantic pace of a manic-cartoon dream.  Everything flies by so quickly that you almost have to watch it multiple times, but fortunately, the film is fun to see again and again.

Part of that is due to the inclusion of music.  This is the most musical Disney animated film as nearly every character and scene has its own little theme song to go with it.  Whenever the White Rabbit shows up, you hear his "I'm Late" song, for example.  Most of the songs are barely over a verse long, but it helps the whole film run like one big record.  As I am writing this review, I'm listening to the soundtrack, and it basically takes you through the whole film, with 55 min of the 75 min runtime appearing on the album.  Each piece of music segues perfectly from scene to scene and it adds a real dreamlike quality.

I particularly enjoy the high-speed Caucus-Race song.  It goes so fast in the movie that you barely have time to understand what anyone is saying, and then it reappears again at the end as Alice is traveling backwards through her dream.  Here, the song takes on a sinister turn, due to the cyclical trap that Alice has found herself in.  This Alice for all its bright colors and funny moments, really starts to feel like a nightmare.

If I have to think of one moment I enjoy this film over all other adaptations, I turn to the Tulgey Wood sequence.  Here, Alice is really starting to feel frightened of the possibility that she will be trapped forever in Wonderland.  Up until this point, her journey has been all about finding the White Rabbit to determine what exactly he is late for, but her curiosity has taken her so far from home that she is scared and doesn't know how to turn back.  In the books, Alice keeps a pretty level head about things and just finds it all delightfully odd.  Here, we see the toll that Wonderland is taking on her.  Whenever she cries in other adaptations, it feels as if her tears come out of nowhere and makes her seem way too young and immature.  But all of her sad moments in this film are earned.

Disney's animation style has really lent a lot to this universe, starting with the Tenniel illustrations and making surreal, beautiful imagery to highlight the madness.  The disappearing Cheshire Cat, Alice's changes in size, and even the Caterpillars smoke letters give the film an authenticity that only animation can provide.  We don't need to worry about awkward live-action special effects limiting the film makers.  We can see everything as Lewis Carroll intended it.  What's even cooler are the live-action references used for the animators.  Seeing Kathryn Beaumont as Alice and the other actors dressed as their characters acting out the scenes for screen tests really shows how much care and effort went into this film!

I still have several more adaptations to get through, and I may find another I enjoy just a much, but to me, this will forever be my favorite Disney film and Alice film.

5 out of 5 Talking Doorknobs