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Prior to Tim Burton’s billion dollar grossing live action reimagining, films based on Alice in Wonderland failed to connect with audiences. It didn’t help that the release of this was met with sneers from literary critics, the British press accusing the film of pandering to more American sensibilities, and reaction from the major creators being indifferent about the completed project. Disney’s Alice in Wonderland isn’t that bad, but it’s not great.
As an introduction to the books, it works effectively enough. Many of the major players and sequences from the two Alice novels are present. If something has been lost in the translation, I think the words of Ward Kimball, one of the Nine Old Men, sum it up effectively: “It suffered from too many cooks – directors. Here was a case of five directors each trying to top the other guy…. It had a self-cancelling effect on the final product.”
It’s true, a lot of the sequences and characters are aimed not for individuality and specificity, but an obvious attempt to prove how rubbery, dexterous, and comedic they could push the animation. Tweedledee and Tweedeledum spring immediately to mind, as their really nothing more than bombast and a series of gags that don’t entirely land. A similar thing happens with the caucus race and the Dodo, who strangely feels too sheepish for the surrounding material.
Much like the books, Alice in Wonderland doesn’t contain much of a narrative, as it’s just a series of vignettes with increasingly strange and erratic denizens, flora and fauna. Alice’s character in the books was more precocious, prone to moments of great wit and challenging authority, and here she’s a bit of a plank. Disney’s version has become the de facto image of what Alice should look like, but her personality got lost in the translation. Where is the glee with which she discovers Wonderland? Or her childish change of emotions? She’s too placid here to resemble the character as described in the books, and this harms the film as the center of it has been deflated.
Yet there’s still much to appreciate about Alice in Wonderland. It’s certainly an improvement over the previous year’s Cinderella, and a few of the images within reminded me of the surreal, borderline frightening work of earlier films like Fantasia and Dumbo. And a handful of characters emerged from Lewis Carroll’s prose to Disney’s animation intact.
The Queen of Hearts bluster, bombastic nature, and aggressive narcissism are a huge jolt of energy in the last few minutes of the film. She doesn’t appear in much of the running time, but her comedic rages and tyranny pack a punch. The Mad Hatter, March Hare, and their corresponding tea party have long been my favorite moment. Here is a sequence in which the delirium and perverse oddity of the Carroll books is given full bloom. If more of the film had been like this, Alice in Wonderland may have been a masterpiece. The White Rabbit is appropriately squeezable and anxious, the talking flowers are charming in their bubble-headed passiveness, and their musical number contains the prettiest harmonies in the film. The best for me has long been the Cheshire Cat. He comes along with a gentle voice that is almost too purring and soft to be consoling, with a grin that is too wide to be normal, and a subtle hint of menace in his actions to make him the tiniest bit creepy. He’s also the most bug-nuts character in the entire thing.
Even better are the backgrounds. Mary Blair, a children’s book illustrator, came into the studio towards the end of Wartime Era, and brought with her a more modern and fresh approach to the films she worked on. Her backgrounds in Cinderella were splendid, but her talents came into fruition in this film and Peter Pan. Her angular, colorful Wonderland is a visual feast, and keeps your eyes engaged even when the film is losing you.
Granted, I am aware that my opinion as anything less than an unimpeachable classic in the Disney canon is not the norm. But I grew up reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, so my love for the wordplay and John Tenniel’s illustrations is deeply ingrained into my nature. No film has ever given me 100% satisfaction in its translation, but they are a lot of them that I enjoy. It’s a great introduction to the books, and it is a nice take on the material. Even if the jettisoning of the more obscure Wonderland residents in favor of Disney's newer creations does leave a sour taste in my mouth. Oh, what I would have given to watch the Jabberwocky, Mock Turtle, the chess pieces, the Duchess, and numerous other characters given life. Like many of the Silver Era Disney features, it's pleasing in episodic spurts, but a little disappointing as a whole.
