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Film Review: Alice in Wonderland – 1951

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Director(s)Clyde Geronimi
Wilfred Jackson
Hamilton Luske
Principal CastKathryn Beaumont  as Alice
Sterling Holloway as Cheshire Cat
Ed Wynn as Mad Hatter
Jerry Colonna as March Hare
Richard Haydn as Caterpillar
Verna Felton as Queen of Hearts
Release Date1951
Language(s)English
Running Time 75 minutes
Report CardClick to go to Review TLDR/Summary
Birds swim in the water and butterflies fly around.
The camera pans through a field of flowers.
The butterflies fly through the field towards Alice’s sister.
Alice’s sister sits underneath a branch and lectures Alice from a book.
The camera pans from a beautiful view of nature abound to Alice’s sister who disregards the same in favor of teaching Alice. However, Alice is more interested in the world around her. There’s a clear divide established between the mundane, adult world that seeks solace in structure and the wonderous, childish world that finds itself caught up in the world of sensations.

The camera pans through a wonderous environment filled with different types of wildlife; butterflies flutter in the sky while birds swim in the waters. But the camera settles on a young woman who could care less about the beauty of nature and is far more focused on educating her sister, Alice, who sits up above on a tree branch. Alice is fully caught up in her own designs and doesn’t pay attention to her sister’s lecture.

Alice’s sister calls Alice to attention. The latter sits on a tree branch and makes a crown of flowers.
Alice gives the crown of flowers to her cat, Dinah.
The crown of flowers drops from Dinah’s head…
…and falls onto Alice’s sister.
While Alice’s sister lectures Alice, the latter crafts a crown of flowers for her cat, Dinah. The crown falls off the cat’s head and falls onto Alice’s sisters head, cluing in the latter to Alice’s lack of attention.

Instead, she makes a crown of flowers for her cat, Dinah, and places it upon Dinah’s head, crowning the pet as royalty of sorts. Dinah shakes the crown off and it lands on Alice’s sister’s head. Alice’s sister looks up and chastises Alice for not paying attention. Alice claims that the lessons are boring and would better suit her temperament if pictures accompanied the words. Her sister responds that there are a host of books without pictures in this world which sets Alice off into another tangent.

If this world contains such boring books, Alice surmises that her world, a world of wonder, would contain no such thing; only pictures would be allowed in books. Her sister calls the idea nonsensical, but far from being deterred by it, Alice seizes on the description and wholeheartedly embraces the moniker: “nonsense”. If the world of sense is so boring, then a world of nonsense has to be better.

Alice tells Dinah about a world of nonsense.
Dinah initially nods along.
But eventually Dinah gets confused by Alice’s description of a nonsensical world.
Meanwhile, Alice is utterly caught up in her description of the nonsensical world.
Alice raves about her nonsensical world while Dinah responds to the descriptions in understandable confusion. Alice’s break with the rules of reality is demonstrated as the 180 rule is broken. She goes from facing left to facing right- a change has happened.

Enamored by the idea, Alice starts to describe to Dinah the way such a nonsense world would operate. Things would be what they are not and what they are not they would be. Alice says as much in a matter-of-fact manner, but if Dinah’s reaction is an indication, nothing she says coheres. Regardless, Alice fully commits to her worldview – a shift which is signified by the film’s breaking of the 180-degree rule as her orientation flips from facing left to facing right; she’s “entered” a new world.

Alice jumps off the tree branch.
Alice curtsies to Dinah in order to teach the latter proper practice.
Alice and Dinah go and stroll through the field of flowers while the former sings.
Alice and Dinah make their way to a brook.
The brook reflects Alice and Dinah.
Alice creates ripples in the reflection on the surface of the water.
The ripple discombobulates the colors of Alice and Dinah, merging them.
The colors swirl and come out in new form, this time as a White Rabbit jogging along.
This shift ripples outward. As Alice jumps off the other side of the tree, her sister can no longer be found. It’s clear we’re in a new world. Alice sings about the wonders of her dream world, calling out to the birds, flower, and brook

This change in environment is reflected as Alice jumps off the tree branch and her sister is now nowhere to be seen. Alice doesn’t notice this disappearance and instead breaks out in song describing all the different ways her wonderland would operate. Eventually the song ends and Dinah and Alice find themselves at the edge of the brook. Alice creates a ripple on the reflection of her and Dinah; the reflected colors of the duo break apart and come back together, this time in the form of a anthropomorphized White Rabbit who’s running along muttering about how he’s “late” to something.

Dinah and Alice give the White Rabbit chase.
The White Rabbit runs without waiting. He can’t be late.
Alice and Dinah crawl into the rabbit hole to follow the White Rabbit.
Alice comments that the decision to enter the rabbit hole is unwise.
Alice falls further into the hole.
Alice waives goodbye to Dinah.

With her curiosity fully piqued, Alice gives chase to the White Rabbit, going so far as to venture down the same rabbit hole she sees him going down. While she crawls into the hole, she mentions to Dinah on how such a decision is unwise and foolish, but she refuses to heed her own advice and proceeds head on. Suddenly, the ground gives beneath her and she falls down into an abyss.

Alice is slightly illuminated by a lamp in the seemingly never-ending abyss.
Alice floats down the abyss as lights constantly change colors around her. She notices herself in a mirror, upside-down.
Alice thinks to herself she may be going to a place where people walk upside down.
She sees the White Rabbit running from an upside-down perspective.
But then Alice realizes it’s she who is upside down, and she gets back right-side up.
Alice continues to give chase to the White Rabbit.

As Alice falls down the seemingly endless pit, she notices a lamp and turns it on. Suddenly, the lights start to strobe from red to blue to purple and so on. She continues to float down and notices an series of oddities including a mirror which reflects her upside-down. She questions whether or not she’s entering a part of the world where people walk upside down before then seeing the White Rabbit running upside down. However, Alice realizes that the Rabbit isn’t upside down; she is. She changes her perspective and continues to give chase to the Rabbit, desperate to figure out what he’s running late to.

Unbeknownst to Alice, the environment she’s running into is none other than a land consonant with her aforementioned nonsensical machinations; she’s heading straight into a world where everything and everyone is “mad” and any attempt at making sense is doomed to fail. Thus begins Alice in Wonderland, the whimsical adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s audacious and nonsensical Alice [1] Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass books. Though the film doesn’t explore its ideas with the same nuances of its source material, the story beats and ideas it does play around with provide a fertile ground for directors Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Wilfred Jackson to show their stuff in brilliant, surrealistic fashion.

The narrative is largely incoherent and functions more as journey through set-pieces than anything else. Alice enters a new location, encounters distinctive and personable denizens of Wonderland, engages with said inhabitants in their respective shenanigans, eats some food material which makes her larger or bigger, gets frustrated by said situation, and then leaves the location. Rinse and repeat.

While the overarching relationship between these situations and their respective characters is largely up to the viewer’s interpretation, the story does have a certain logic pervading through it: Alice begins to understand and respect the need for a rational syntax capable of organizing the world – a sense to wade through the nonsense. Her growth gives the narrative a feeling of momentum in spite of its haphazard jumping around allowing the the directors to focus on the random nature of the spectacle. There’s no need to explain why or how situations are happening so we’re allowed to experience the spectacle with a sense of youthful exuberance, becoming children in response to the wonders on display.

Characters transform. Environments open up into new ones. Denizens break into song/snippets, often times making direct references to the source material proper. There’s always something dynamic happening in the frame challenging your assumption on what could happen next.

Add in the iconic voice acting which makes each character leap off the screen and it becomes clear why Alice in Wonderland is so charming. It’s hard not to become mesmerized by the ever-evolving cascade of characters and situations. It may be nonsense, but that doesn’t make it any less moving.

REPORT CARD

TLDRAlice in Wonderland demonstrates the power of animation, presenting surreal sequences that demonstrate the creativity inherent to the medium. The nonsensical story, which moves from set-piece to set-piece, gives the directors’ multiple opportunities to just relish in sheer absurdity. There’s a sense of joy here that’s palpable, calling out to the whimsical child-like sense of wonder inside all of us.
Rating10/10
GradeS

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