This movie is almost legendary, with an alleged star studded cast of people who actually weren't quite stars. We had seen bits and pieces over the years, but never watched it from the beginning until it was on TV recently. The sad fact is, it's not nearly as good as it should be. Movies were supposedly entering into their golden age at this point, but maybe they weren't quite there yet in 1933. This version of Lewis Carroll's immortal tale is dull and leaden, without magic and without an ounce of charm. It starts out with an invented character, a sour-faced old aunt who sets the dark, scolding tone. Alice falls asleep and goes not only through the looking glass but also down the rabbit hole in a confusing set of sequences. Someone thought it was a good idea to try to replicate the famous John Tenniel illustrations from the book, resulting in a lot of grotesque, amateurish looking papier-mâché heads covering up all the characters. The tone shifts throughout, with stylized creatures like the frog and the fish mixed in with real life ducks. Scenes come and go in a hodgepodge, none of them very funny or light of touch. We wanted this to be better from beginning to end, but alas. Nobody has ever really captured "Alice in Wonderland" correctly except for Lewis Carroll himself.
Review of Alice in Wonderland
