9 / 10
Alice in Wonderland is the strangest Disney film of its era, and I love it. It’s all episodes, one mad encounter after another, and it looks like nothing else the studio made.
Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske directed it, and it came out in 1951. It lost money, and Walt Disney himself said it had no heart. It’s a 9.
The Source
Disney had wanted to make Alice since the thirties. It took Lewis Carroll’s two books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and stitched their best scenes together. It keeps the nonsense and loses the logic puzzles, and it doesn’t try to be faithful.
The Premise
Alice is bored at a lesson, follows a rabbit down a hole and spends the rest of the film trying to find her way out of a place where nothing makes sense. There’s no villain until the Queen of Hearts, and no plan except getting home.
The Cast
Kathryn Beaumont voices Alice, polite and increasingly cross. Ed Wynn is the Mad Hatter and Jerry Colonna is the March Hare, and the tea party is one of the funniest scenes Disney ever made. Sterling Holloway is the Cheshire Cat, Richard Haydn the Caterpillar, and Verna Felton the Queen of Hearts, who wants everyone’s head off.
The Animation Approach
Mary Blair’s color designs give it a flat, bright, modern look, and the animators let the strangeness show. The Walrus and the Carpenter, the flowers who sing and sneer and the Tulgey Wood full of odd creatures are as imaginative as anything the studio did.
The Initial Commercial Disappointment
It flopped in 1951, and Walt didn’t like it, because Alice has no emotional journey. That’s true, and it doesn’t matter. The film is a dream, and dreams don’t have arcs.
The Counterculture Reception
In the sixties, college students rediscovered it, and the hookah-smoking caterpillar and the melting colors made it a favorite for reasons Disney didn’t care to discuss. It’s been a classic ever since. Tim Burton’s 2010 remake made a fortune and lost almost everything that made this one special.
Craft Note
Craft Note
Alice in Wonderland holds together with no plot at all. Each scene is a self-contained comedy, and the only thread is Alice’s growing wish to go home.
If your story is episodic, make every episode strong enough to stand alone, and give the reader one simple thread to follow through them.
Is Alice in Wonderland (1951) worth watching?
Yes. It’s a 9, one of Disney’s most inventive films and far better than its reputation at the time. Watch it for the tea party and the Cheshire Cat.
Frequently Asked Questions
This film appears on 2 of my film lists