Alice on the Screen
David Schaefer, a Carroll scholar who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, owns a great collection of Alice- related films. He has kindly provided the following listings.
Newsreel
1932 Alice in U.S. Land. Paramount News. Newsreel of Mrs. Alice Liddell Hargreaves, eighty, arriving for the hundredth-anniversary celebration of Carroll’s birth. Talks of her trip down the river with “Mr. Dodgson.” Her son, Caryl Hargreaves, and her sister Rhoda Liddell, are identifiable. Filmed aboard the Cunard Line’s Berengeria in New York Harbor, April 29, 1932. Running time: seventy-five seconds.
Feature Films
1903 Alice in Wonderland. Produced and directed by Cecil Hepworth. Filmed in Great Britain. Alice is played by May Clark. The very first Alice film. Alice shrinks and grows. The film has sixteen scenes, all from Alice’s Adventures. Running time: ten minutes.
1910  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (A Fairy Comedy). Produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company, Orange, New Jersey. Alice is played by Gladys Hulette. The film has fourteen scenes, all from Alice’s Adventures. Running time: ten minutes (one reel). The film was made in the Bronx. Gladys Hulette later became a Pathé star.
1915 Alice in Wonderland. Produced by Nonpareil Feature Film Company, directed by W. W. Young, “picturized” by Dewitt C. Wheeler. Alice is played by Viola Savoy. Most of the scenes were filmed on an estate on Long Island. The film as originally made contained scenes from Alice’s Adventures and Through the Looking-Glass. Running time: fifty minutes (five reels).
1931 Alice in Wonderland. Commonwealth Pictures Corporation. Screen adaptation by John F. Godson and Ashley Miller. Produced at the Metropolitan Studios, Fort Lee, New Jersey. Directed by “Bud” Pollard. Alice played by Ruth Gilbert. All scenes are from Alice’s Adventures. The first sound Alice. The thump of the camera can often be heard.
1933 Alice in Wonderland. Paramount Productions. Produced by Louis D. Leighton, directed by Norman McLeod, screenplay by Joseph J. Mankiewicz and William Cameron Menzies. Music by Dimitri Tiomkin. Alice played by Charlotte Henry. An all-star cast of forty-six includes: W. C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Edward Everett Horton as the Mad Hatter, Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle, Gary Cooper as the White Knight, Edna May Oliver as the Red Queen, May Robson as the Queen of Hearts, and Baby LeRoy as the Deuce of Hearts. Scenes from Alice’s Adventures and Looking-Glass. Running time: ninety minutes. In looking-glass fashion Charlotte Henry started her movie career as the star of this film and worked her way down to lesser roles.
1948 Alice au pays des merveilles (Alice in Wonderland). Produced in France at Victorine Studios by Lou Bunin. Directed by Marc Maurette and Dallas Bowers; script by Henry Myers, Edward Flisen, and Albert Cervin. Marionette animation by Lou Bunin. Alice played by Carol Marsh. Voices for puppets by Joyce Grenfell, Peter Bull, and Jack Train. The prologue, which shows Lewis Carroll’s life at Christ Church, has Pamela Brown as Queen Victoria and Stanley Baker as Prince Albert. Color. Produced in French and English versions. Exclusive of the prologue, all the characters are puppets except Alice, who is a live adult. Disney tried to stop production, distribution, and display of the film.
1951 Alice in Wonderland. Walt Disney Productions. Production Supervisor, Ben Sharpsteen. Alice’s voice by Kathryn Beaumont. Animation. Color. Sequences from Alice’s Adventures and Looking-Glass. Running time: seventy-five minutes. Poorly received when produced, but has made a great deal of money for Disney since.
1972 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Executive Producer, Joseph Shaftel. Producer, Derek Home. Director, William Sterling. Musical Director, John Barry. Lyricist, Don Black. Alice played by Fiona Fullerton. Peter Sellers is the March Hare, Dame Flora Robson is the Queen of Hearts, Dennis Price is the King of Hearts, and Sir Ralph Richardson is the Caterpillar. Color. Wide screen. A lavish production, visually beautiful, slow moving. The Tenniel illustrations were faithfully followed. Sequences from Alice’s Adventures and Looking-Glass. Running time: ninety minutes.
1985 Dreamchild. The 80-year old Alice (Alice Hargreaves) is played by Coral Browne. Her young paid companion by Nicola Cowper. The young Alice by Amelia Shankley and Lewis Carroll by Ian Holm. A fictional story inspired by Alice’s visit to the United States in 1932.
1976 Alice in Wonderland, an X-Rated Musical Comedy. Alice is played by Kristine DeBell.
1988 Neco z Alenky. Directed and written by Jan Svankmajer of Czechoslovakia.
Alice Sequences in Other Feature Films
1930 Puttin’ on the Ritz. Produced by John W. Considine, Jr., directed by Edward H. Sloman. Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. Joan Bennett is in a six-minute Alice in Wonderland dance sequence from this film.
1938 My Lucky Star. 20th Century Fox. Sonja Henie is an Alice on skates along with many other characters from the book, all on the ice. Approximately ten-minute sequence.
Cartoons
1933 Betty in Blunderland. Cartoon directed by Dave Fleischer. Animation by Roland Crandall and Thomas Johnson. Betty Boop follows Wonderland and Looking-Glass characters from a jigsaw puzzle via subway station down the rabbit hole. Running time: ten minutes.
1936 Thru the Mirror. Walt Disney Productions. A brilliant Mickey Mouse cartoon based on Through the Looking-Glass.
1955 Sweapea Thru the Looking Glass. King Features Syndicate cartoon. Executive Producer, Al Brodax. Directed by Jack Kinney. Color. Sweapea goes through a looking glass and falls down a golf hole into the “Wunnerland Golf Club.”
1971 Zvahlar aneb Saticky Slameného Huberta. Produced by Katky Film, Prague. Screenplay, design, and direction by Jan Svankmajer. This animation begins with a reading of “Jabberwocky.” “Sequence of images composed of seemingly nonsense activities.” Color. Running time: fourteen minutes.
Made for Television
1950 Alice in Wonderland. Television production staged at the Ford Theatre in December 1950. Alice is played by Iris Mann and the White Rabbit by Dorothy Jarnac.
1965 Curly in Wonderland. The Three Stooges in animation.
1966 Alice in Wonderland, or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? Hanna-Barbera Productions. Book by Bill Dana. Music and lyrics by Lee Adams and Charles Strauss. Color. Animation. Alice’s voice by Janet Waldo, Cheshire Cat by Sammy Davis, Jr., White Knight by Bill Dana, Queen by Zsa Zsa Gabor. Running time: fifty minutes. Alice follows her dog through a television tube.
1966 Alice Through the Looking Glass. Shown November 1966. Script by Albert Simmons, lyrics by Elsie Simmons, music by Moose Charlap. Its cast includes Judi Rolin as Alice, Jimmy Durante as Humpty Dumpty, Nanette Fabray as the White Queen, Agnes Moorehead as the Red Queen, Jack Palance as the Jabberwock, The Smothers Brothers as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Ricardo Montalban as the White King. Running time: ninety minutes.
1967 Alice in Wonderland. BBC television production. Directed by Jonathan Miller. Presentation of Wonderland as a Victorian social commentary. Grand production with a star cast: Sir John Gielgud as the Mock Turtle, Sir Michael Redgrave as the Caterpillar, Peter Sellers as the King, Peter Cook as the Hatter, Sir Malcolm Muggeridge as the Gryphon, Anne-Marie Mallik, a young schoolgirl, as Alice.
1967 Abbott and Costello in Blunderland. Hanna-Barbera Productions. An animation.
1970 Alice in Wonderland. O.R.T.F. (French television) production. Directed by Jean-Christophe Averty. Burlesque with stunning visual and auditory overlay. Alice Sapritch and Francis Blanche as the King and Queen.
1973 Through the Looking-Glass. BBC television production. Produced by Rosemary Hill, adapted and directed by James MacTaggart. Twelve-year-old Sarah Sutton as Alice, Brenda Bruce as the White Queen, Freddie Jones as Humpty Dumpty, Judy Parfitt as the Red Queen, and Richard Pearson as the White King.
1985 Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Produced by Irwin Allen. Songs by Steve Allen. Natalie Gregory as Alice, with a cast of stars including Jayne Meadows, Robert Morley, Red Buttons, and Sammy Davis, Jr.
1999 Alice in Wonderland. Three-hour production directed by Nick Willing. There were 875 postproduction digital effects. Robert Halmi, Sr., and Robert Halmi, Jr., were the executive producers, and Peter Barnes wrote the script. Tina Majorino is Alice; Whoopi Goldberg, the Cheshire Cat; Martin Short, the Mad Hatter; Ben Kingsley, the Caterpillar; Christopher Lloyd, the White Knight; Peter Ustinov, the Walrus; Miranda Richardson, the Queen of Hearts; and Gene Wilder, the Mock Turtle. Robbie Coltrane and George Wendt are Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The first Alice with extensive computer enhancement.
Educational
1972 Curious Alice. Written, designed, and produced by Design Center, Inc., Washington, D.C. Made for the National Institute of Mental Health. Color. Part of a drug course for elementary school children. A live Alice has a journey among animated characters. The Caterpillar smokes marijuana, the Mad Hatter takes LSD, the Dormouse uses barbiturates, and the March Hare pops amphetamines. The White Rabbit is a leader already into drugs. The Cheshire Cat is Alice’s conscience. Running time: approximately fifteen minutes.
1978 Alice in Wonderland: A Lesson in Appreciating Differences. Walt Disney Productions. Live action at beginning and end with the lesson in appreciating differences brought home by a showing of the flower sequence from the Disney feature and a discussion about how badly the flowers treated Alice simply because she was different.