Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. The production was supervised by Ben Sharpsteen, and was directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske. With the voices of Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna and Kathryn Beaumont, the film follows a young girl, Alice, who falls down a rabbit hole and enters a nonsensical world, Wonderland, which is ruled by the Queen of Hearts, while encountering strange creatures, including the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat.
Walt Disney was supposed to make his first film Alice which was supposed to star Mary Pickford as Alice, but he chose not to do the film and instead did Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). However, the idea was eventually revived in the 1940s, following the success of Snow White. The film was originally intended to be a live-action/animated film, but Disney decided it would be a fully animated feature film. During its production, many sequences adapted from Carroll's books were later omitted, such as Jabberwocky, the White Knight, the Duchess, Mock Turtle and the Gryphon.
Alice in Wonderland premiered at the Leicester Square Theatre in London on July 26, 1951, and was released in New York City on July 28. The film was also shown on television as one of the first episodes of Disneyland. It was a box-office failure on its first release, grossing $2.4 million domestically, and received mixed reviews from critics. However, its 1974 theatrical re-release achieved greater success, leading to additional reissues, merchandising, and home video releases as critical reception improved over time.
Plot
In a park in England, a young girl named Alice listens distractedly to her sister's history lesson. As she begins daydreaming of a nonsensical world, she spots a waistcoat-wearing White Rabbit passing by, who complains of being late. Alice chases him into a burrow and plummets down a deep hole. She sees the White Rabbit disappear into a tiny door and tries to follow, but the door's talking knob advises her to alter her size using a mysterious drink and food. Alice eventually manages to shrink and passes through the door's keyhole and into Wonderland. She meets several strange characters including the Dodo and Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the latter of whom recount the tale of "The Walrus and the Carpenter".
Alice eventually finds the White Rabbit in his house, but before she can ask what he is late for, the White Rabbit mistakes her for his housemaid, and he sends her inside to fetch his gloves. She eats a cookie from a cookie box and grows into a giant again, trapping herself in the White Rabbit's house. The White Rabbit, the Dodo, and chimney sweep Bill the Lizard believe Alice to be a monster and plot to burn the house down. Alice escapes by eating a carrot from the White Rabbit's garden and shrinking down to the size of an insect. She meets and sings with some talking flowers, but they chase her away upon accusing her of being a weed. Alice is instructed by the hookah-smoking Caterpillar to eat a part of his mushroom grow back to her original size. Alice decides to keep the remaining pieces of the mushroom on hand.
Alice meets the Cheshire Cat who advises her to visit the Mad Hatter, March Hare and Dormouse. The three are hosting a mad tea party and celebrate Alice's "unbirthday", a day when it is not her birthday. The White Rabbit appears, but the March Hare and Mad Hatter destroy his pocket watch and throw him out of the party. Alice gives up on her pursuit of the White Rabbit and decides to go home, but gets lost in the Tulgey Wood. The Cheshire Cat appears and leads Alice into a giant hedge maze ruled by the tyrannical Queen of Hearts and her smaller husband, the King of Hearts. The Queen executes anyone who enrages her, and invites Alice to a bizarre croquet match using flamingoes and hedgehogs as the equipment.
The Cheshire Cat appears again and pulls a trick on the Queen which she accuses Alice of doing, and Alice is put on trial. However, Alice eats the remains of the Caterpillar's mushroom and grows to an enormous height. Tired of Wonderland, Alice openly insults the Queen by scolding for her rash behavior and calling her a "fat, pompous, bad-tempered old tyrant" until she shrinks to her normal size and is forced to flee after the Queen orders her execution. Alice becomes pursued by most of Wonderland's characters until she finally reunites with the Doorknob. The Doorknob tells her she is having a dream, forcing Alice to wake herself up. Finally, Alice and her sister head home for tea.
Voice cast
Kathryn Beaumont as Alice, a curious and imaginative little girl who gets tired of the ordinary world and dreams of living in her own nonsensical world. Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter, an eccentric elderly man whom Alice encounters in Wonderland. The Hatter and his best friend, the March Hare, are known for throwing frequent tea parties in celebration of their "unbirthdays". Richard Haydn as the Caterpillar, a resident of Wonderland, known for smoking a hookah from which colorful smoke rises, forming letters, words, and even images that he refers to while speaking. Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat, a mysterious, pink-and-purple-striped cat with a permanent grin. Mischievous and unpredictable in nature, the Cheshire Cat acts as a guide for Alice during her adventures in Wonderland, but also takes pleasure in causing her trouble. Jerry Colonna as the March Hare, a wacky, mallet-carrying hare. He is a resident of Wonderland and the best friend of the Mad Hatter, with whom the Hare regularly engages in tea and "unbirthday" parties. Verna Felton as the Queen of Hearts, the tyrannical and deranged ruler of Wonderland, with a sadistic penchant for beheadings. When Alice arrives in the kingdom and inadvertently humiliates the monarch, the Queen of Hearts becomes obsessed with decapitating the little girl. J. Pat O'Malley as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, two fat identical twin brothers dressed in schoolboy uniforms and wearing red propeller caps. They take particular delight in reciting poems and songs. O'Malley also voiced the Walrus and the Carpenter, two jobless travelers whose story was told to Alice by Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Bill Thompson as the White Rabbit, an anthropomorphic rabbit who serves as the Queen of Hearts' herald, an obligation to which he is often late. While hurrying to work one day, the White Rabbit catches the attention of a little girl named Alice, who follows the rabbit into Wonderland to find out why he was late. Thompson also voiced the Dodo, a dodo in charge of handling the Caucus Race, an event in which everyone runs at an equal pace and in a circle in an attempt to get dry. Heather Angel as Alice's sister Joseph Kearns as Doorknob Larry Grey as Bill the Lizard Dink Trout as the King of Hearts Jimmy MacDonald as Dormouse Clarence Nash as Dinah, Alice's red pet cat
Directing animators Directing animators are: Marc Davis (Alice and the eyeglasses creature) Milt Kahl (The Dodo, Alice, Flamingo, Hedgehog, White Rabbit) Eric Larson (Alice, Dinah, Caterpillar, Cheshire Cat, Queen of Hearts, Flamingo) Frank Thomas (Doorknob, Queen of Hearts, Wonderland Creatures) Ollie Johnston (Alice, King of Hearts) Ward Kimball (Tweedledee and Tweedledum, The Walrus and The Carpenter, Oysters, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter, March Hare, Dormouse) John Lounsbery (Flowers, Caterpillar, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter, March Hare, Wonderland creatures) Wolfgang Reitherman (White Rabbit, The Carpenter, The Dodo, Mad Hatter, March Hare) Les Clark (Alice, Wonderland creatures) Norm Ferguson (The Walrus and The Carpenter)
Production
Early development Walt Disney was familiar with Lewis Carroll's Alice books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871), having read them as a schoolboy. In 1923, while working at the Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, he produced a short film titled Alice's Wonderland, which was loosely inspired by the Alice books and featured a live-action girl (Virginia Davis) interacting with an animated world. Faced with business problems, the Laugh-O-Gram Studio went bankrupt in July of that year, and the film was never released to the general public. However, when Disney left for Hollywood, he used Alice's Wonderland to show to potential distributors. By October 1923, Margaret J. Winkler of Winkler Pictures agreed to distribute the Alice Comedies series, and Disney partnered with his older brother Roy to form the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, which was later re-branded Walt Disney Productions; he also re-hired his Kansas City co-workers, including Ub Iwerks, Rudolph Ising, Friz Freleng, Walker and Hugh Harman, to work on the series. Alice Comedies began in 1924 before being retired in 1927.
By June 1932, Roy Disney was first interested in acquiring the film rights to the Alice books, which, as he learned, were in the public domain. In March 1933, Mary Pickford approached Walt with a proposal for a feature-length adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, which would combine Pickford's live-action performance of the title role with an animated Wonderland supplied by the Disney studio. Disney was hesitant about the idea, and the project was quickly scrapped, after Paramount Pictures secured the film rights for their own live-action version. In 1936, Disney produced the Mickey Mouse short film Thru the Mirror, which was based on Carroll's second Alice novel, Through the Looking-Glass, featuring Mickey Mouse going through a mirror into a world where all the items in his house become alive.
After the enormous success of his first full-length animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Disney acquired the film rights to the Alice books with John Tenniel's illustrations from the Macmillan Company by May 1938 and officially registered the title with the Motion Picture Association of America. He then hired storyboard artist Al Perkins to develop the story; on September 6, 1938, Perkins compiled a detailed 161-page "analysis" of Carroll's book, which included preliminary ideas of the story treatment and summarized descriptions for each scene. On March 1, 1939, British illustrator David Hall joined the Disney studio and was immediately assigned to create the concept artwork for the film. A leica reel, featuring Hall's paintings, was completed on September 20, 1939, but Disney was not pleased; he felt that Hall's drawings resembled Tenniel's illustrations too closely, making them too difficult to animate, and that the overall tone of Perkins' script was too grotesque and dark. Disney also expressed a bit of disinterest in the project, stating, "I don't think there would be any harm in letting this thing sit for a while. Everyone is stale now. You'll look at it again and maybe have another idea on it. That's the way it works for me. I still feel that we can stick close to Alice in Wonderland and make it look like it and feel like it, you know". By February 1940, the project was still in the development, albeit slowly, with an additional story meeting held on April 2 of that year. After finishing his work on Fantasia, concept artist Gordon Legg created new inspirational sketches for the film, but eventually left the studio the following year. By the fall of 1940, the animation work on Alice in Wonderland was planned to be completed within the next two years, but Disney himself was rather unenthusiastic about the project.
Disney brought up Alice in Wonderland again at a meeting on April 8, 1941, offering to produce it as an animated film starring a live-action actress, similar to his earlier Alice Comedies series; at the same meeting, Gloria Jean was suggested for the role of Alice.