Alice in Wonderland (VHS)

It s your typical girl-falls-down-hole-into-other-world story. This adaptation combines elements of Lewis Carroll s books The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Kathryn Beaumont, a precocious young English child at the time, voices Alice while Sterling Holloway (better known as Winnie-the-Pooh) voices the Cheshire Cat.

We open in a peaceful garden. A young woman is reading, but the young girl isn t interested in her history lesson. Alice imagines a world of contradiction, where animals would act like people. The Dinah the cat and Alice spy a rabbit who fusses he is late. When Alice follows the rabbit and falls down a hole, she waves goodbye to Dinah (remarkably self-possessed) and finds her dress acting as a parachute.

Alice meets a talking doorknob and then begins a size-changing odyssey (emphasis on the odd part), sees a Dodo out for a sail, then twins Tweedledee and Tweedledum, who relate the poem of the Walrus and the Carpenter:
The time has come, the walrus said,
to talk of other things; of shoes and ships and sealing wax,
of cabbages and kings; and why the sea is boiling hot,
and whether pigs have wings.

Alice finds the White Rabbit at his home, encounters talking flowers, rocking-horse flies, and bread-and-butter flies, comes upon a caterpillar smoking a hookah, meets a Cheshire Cat, and attends a mad tea party with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, where the Dormouse sings:
Twinkle twinkle little bat,
How I wonder what you re at;
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.

Alice wanders into the Tulgey Wood with its strange birds, and then is led by the Cheshire Cat to the palace grounds to meet the Queen of Hearts. The soldiers are hearts; the gardeners are spades. She plays a game of croquet with the Queen, which she tries to complete without losing her head.

The animation in this film is below Disney s normal standards. It s as if so much work went into creating the odd and wondrous creations of Lewis Carroll s (nee Charles Dodgson) imagination, the backgrounds and transitions had to be skimped. Transitions are often very abrupt and poorly managed. Backgrounds are often extremely basic. The sparse backgrounds do help convey the dreamy nature, as our dreams are often devoid of such details, but it comes off as a time- or money-saver. It looks like TV animation, but TV at this time wasn t color yet.

The music is very early 1950 s. There is a swing feel to most of the songs, although no big-band type numbers. Disney is still using general music, rather than music aimed specifically at children.

This is not a Disney triumph. The movie serves as a pleasant diversion, or as an introduction to the books of Lewis Carroll. If watching the movie makes children want to read the book, that is a good thing for all concerned. As usual, the movie isn t as good as the book. Works as proper nonsense, though.