Jonathan Miller’s 1966 BBC production of Alice in Wonderland is finally out on DVD!..after never, as far as I know, having been available on videotape!
Here’s a few of the casting highlights, so’s you can see why I’m so manic and free with the exclamation points:
John Gielgud as the Mock Turtle! Peter Cook as the Mad Hatter! Michael Redgrave as the Caterpillar! Wilfrid Brambell as the White Rabbit! Leo McKern as the Duchess! Peter Sellers as the King of Hearts! Malcolm Muggeridge as the Gryphon! Eric Idle and Angelo Muscat in Uncredited Roles!
No make-up or animal suits or huge playing-card costumes…Miller dressed his characters like Victorian ladies and gentlemen. It’s been called an “Alice” for grown-ups, as well as a fine depiction of what it must have been like to be incarcerated in a Victorian madhouse!
According to the DVD Verdict website, it “has the creepy, perverse, hyperreal atmosphere of a dream. The deep-focus, black and white photography is excellent, as is Ravi Shankar’s sitar music (which Miller chose because it reminded him of the droning quality of insects on a hot summer’s day). In fact, the film looks and sounds like an un-psychedelic, '60s-era head-trip. What little comedy there is relies more on Lewis Carroll’s illogical riddles and puns than on character or shtick.”
I’ve been hearing about this version for years, and the DVD better by God show up in my Christmas stocking.
Anyone here seen it? Am I going to be as pleased as I think I am?
I saw the thread title and immediately thought about the sitcom Alice. And my response to that would have been that the coolest episode was when Vera became a late-night radio host and Mel fell in love with her voice and on-air persona, not knowing who she really was.
Well, . . . I may seek it out, but I don’t think it’s possible to do a decent dramatic version of Alice. It’s too much a literary word and doesn’t translate well. In addition, Walt Disney hit the nail on the head when he said, “Alice has no heart.” She is not really a character.
The only half-decent one I saw was the one in the 80s starring Richard Burton’s daughter, and that worked because they added a frame tale.
Both the Alice books are truly great, but they just don’t work on the screen.
There have been a lot of Alice’s. I haven’t seen them all, but I’ve seen quite a few. Most are too full of themselves, too boring, or too strange.
I’m going to go the unpopular route (or mayb the too popular route) and champion Disney’s version from 1951.
Yep, Disney. I realize that they trashed Tenniel’s illustrations and “Disnreyfied” everything, and they switched around the story. But fer cryin’ out loud, every version changes the story! And Disney’s version was entertaining, retained a siurprising number of Carroll’s original poems and songs (watch it again, and pay attention), indulged in Carrollian wordplay (“The Two did it!” “The Deuce, you say!”), and was genuinely entertaining without freaking out the kids. And it’s never boring.
I want to get that czech one that Anamorphic just mentioned. It sounds like the freakiest one imaginable. I’ve been interested in seeing the 1966 one for awhile, too, so I’m glad to hear it’s out on dvd.
My favorite previously was the 1983 Kate Burton one and that always stuck in my head because she was dressed up like Alice and SMOKING, which was very disturbing to me as a 4 year old.
Alice in Wonderland is my favorite story and always has been…I was disappointed that the Alice game (where Alice has been in a mental hospital and goes back to save a creep show wonderland) was so much less than I hoped it would be. They’re supposedly going to make a movie of that game but that’s a bad idea in my opinion.
Hurrah!!!
Thanks Ike, haven’t seen that one. Anamorphic, yessss!!! Had no idea that was out on DVD (well, had to order it from Canada).
Sock monsters and raw slithering meat!! Rusty screws in jars of liquid!!! aaaaaaaaaaaagghhh!!!
Looks like Peter Sellers was the March Hare, cool. The first review is exactly what I would have said. No other version has yet come near this close to being what I would call faithful.
It will be really neat to see the one mentioned in the first post though. Thanks for the heads up Ike.
Yeah, the only still I’ve seen from this is one of McKern in drag, clutching a baby pig.
I’m particularly enthused about seeing Cook as the Hatter…he was SUCH a great Devil in the original Bedazzled… and Brambell (Paul’s grandad, the “incredibly clean old man” from A Hard Day’s Night) playing the White Rabbit.