Alice no País das Maravilhas

I don't know if this film exists in another form other than the public domain one that is available on the internet. My review is based solely on this public domain print. If there is a restored print available, please, please, please see that one instead, as the public domain one is severely degraded--much more so than usual. This is because older films were made on nitrate stock that would begin degrading (turning to powder, liquifying or even exploding over time) almost immediately. Many early sound and silent films simply no longer exist due to this decomposition. ALICE is so badly degraded that many portions of the film are almost unwatchable.

As for the film apart from that, like many of the films of these early years of cinema, they've taken a literary classic and replicated scenes from it--not the entire film. As most films were five minutes or less (often much less), the fact that this is about eight is actually unusual--making this "full-length" at least for the time. In many ways, it was like a highlights clip. The costumes and sets, for 1903, were very good but when compared to films of the middle and late silent era, it would appear very crude and incomplete. If I were comparing it to other 1903 era films, I'd give it a 7 or 8, but given the severe decomposition, it's probably not worth seeing for the average person and more of interest to film historians and devoted fans.

This 1903 film by Cecil M. Hepworth is said to be THE first adaptation of the classic story "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. Running at a little over 8 minutes, the film is laughably poor when looked at today because of its primitiveness. However, such a comparison is not allowed because of its age. You cannot criticize this movie for having no computer graphics because there were none by 1903. Instead, superimposing and dissolves were done in a much harder way (some as overlaying different filmstrips) and took a great deal of work, so the special effects used in "Alice in Wonderland" are actually very good for the time.

The story is not entirely told in this short adaptation. Instead, Hepworth presents some of the highlights of the book--the shrinking and growing to get through the door, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, the Queen of Hearts. Because it is so old, it is understandable he didn't tell the whole thing--full-length feature movies were still in the future. Unfortunately, even if modern audiences could still find interest in this, any chance of that would be ruined by film deterioration. Not a few specks and scratches, actual, crumbling deterioration. You can see what is going on for the most part, but the truth is, modern audiences just won't find much value is any of it and film buffs who are used to this sort of thing will get much more out of this beat-up copy.

That said, for me it does have some interesting things to note. At the beginning of the film, they superimposed the short's title on the bush by which Alice sits before she falls asleep. This is something I don't think I've seen before from the early silent era and looks more up-to-date then a title card (although it was still there when the White Rabbit came along, so when he passed his head in front of it you could see his head right through the type). Also, several title cards are included as well which look authentic, not modern cards added to help with the story. This would make it one of the first movies to use title cards and thus very much ahead of its time.

Like that other 1903 "adaptation" Uncle Tom's Cabin, this very short movie is a succession of illustrations brought to life before a static camera. The Great Train Robbery of this same year was a great cinematic step forward in its use of film as story-telling. Nevertheless, Alice is a gem that has survived the ravages of time miraculously if rather battered. It is very primitive, but that also lends it a great charm, particularly the procession of the cards and their chase of Alice, with its host of little children dressed up as cards and having great fun on a sunny day in the park. For those who are not Alice lovers, this may barely register, but aficionados may happily have it on a permanent loop filling one whole side of a plasma screen wall (in a few years time that is). It is a strong candidate crying out for restoration, even though a number of frames will remain missing, particularly of the dog, who would later gain fame in Rescued by Rover! Have a happy Wonderland!

Much in the same way as 'The Blacksmith Scene' from 1893, the first filmed version of 'Alice in Wonderland' from 1903 plays out more as a curious look into the history of film making at that time and the importance of film preservation for today, than a credible film adaptation of the book. However, in its initial release to the public, the film was popular, and at a staggering eight minutes in length, it was the longest movie to date. There are some nifty special effects of Alice shrinking and growing in the doll house, and there's an excellent commentary track on the DVD that talks about the people involved in the production of the film. However, through years of neglect and the natural decline of the nitrate on the film, there are more gaps, breaks and white scratches on the film that make its viewing somewhat difficult. No copies of the film have survived through time, the one used for the DVD is the original and it's in terrible shape.

You can find this movie, warts and all, on the DVD of 'Alice In Wonderland' from 1966 directed by Jonathan Miller, who's version while clean, starring a stellar cast, and looking beautiful, could also be described as viewing that is 'somewhat difficult'.

I'm giving the movie a 9/10. It was a 3, but I took this pill and it grew to a 9.

Clark Richards

Cecil Hepworth is a vitally important figure in Britain's early cinema, but his achievements were compromised by the fact that he was a poor businessman and poor planner. Prints of his most popular films -- such as "Comin' Thro the Rye" and "The Joke that Failed" -- were sold outright to exhibitors, causing Hepworth to wear out the original negatives. In order to meet continuing demand for new prints, he was forced to re-shoot these movies in their entirety! Hepworth probably deserves credit for filming the first remake.

Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll, author of 'Alice in Wonderland') died in 1898, in the very earliest years of Britain's cinema, and there is no surviving record of him ever having seen a movie. (Dodgson's vast archive of correspondence was burnt by his family after his death, and his diary was censored: there may well have been a movie review in there someplace.) Yet I'm 100% certain that Dodgson would have been a cinephile. He was an expert and enthusiastic amateur photographer, he had a deep love of the theatre, and the 'Alice' books contain several devices which seem more cinematic than literary: Alice is subjected to the shot change, the jump cut, the dissolve, and so forth.

Cecil Hepworth's 1903 film version of 'Alice in Wonderland' -- apparently the first movie version of that oft-filmed book -- was made barely five years after Dodgson's death. Scantly nine minutes long, this crude 'trick' movie necessarily shows only a few fragments of the novel. The uncredited production designer (Hepworth himself?) has clearly made considerable effort to base the sets and costumes on Sir John Tenniel's beloved illustrations, so it's strange that the central character looks nothing at all like Tenniel's Alice: the actress cast here has long black hair, and her pinafore is nearly ankle-length.

Quite impressively, Alice actually falls into a genuine hole in the ground. To show her plunging vertically (as in the novel) would have been technically difficult to stage, so we see her creeping through a slanting shaft, in an impressive cutaway shot (the cinema's first)? Some of the special effects are achieved through simple jump cuts, much less flamboyant than what Georges Melies was doing in France at this time. Alice's growth spurt in the White Rabbit's house is amusingly staged by placing the actress intentionally too close to the camera, in an undersized set.

I was impressed by one elaborate bit of pageantry in an exterior shot. Alice stands on a broad greensward (apparently a partial matte shot) while the 52 members of the pack of cards parade past her, one suit at a time.

The print which I viewed had neatly typeset intertitles, but was an acetate print several generations removed from the original ... so I can't tell if these titles date back to Hepworth's original 1903 production, or were added later. Oddly, the opening title makes a point of telling us that Alice's adventure is a dream: this was only implied in the first chapter of the original novel. More significantly, the dominant figure at the Mad Tea Party is identified in a title here as 'the Mad Hatter'. This usage is now quite common, but it never appears in Carroll's original novel: nowhere in the text of 'Alice in Wonderland' is the word 'Hatter' immediately preceded by the word 'mad'. The expression 'mad as a hatter' refers to the fact that 19th-century hatters often developed nervous tics from exposure to the highly toxic vapours of mercuric nitrate. Men's hats in Victorian times were made of felt; 19th-century hatters cured the felt by a process called 'carroting' which left a carrot-coloured residue. Since the Hatter in Carroll's novel is never explicitly cried 'the Mad Hatter', I'm surprised to find evidence that this popular mis-usage may have been in place as early as 1903. I wish I could establish the origin of these title cards.

Hepworth's production of 'Alice in Wonderland' is extremely crude by modern standards, and leaves out most of the plot of Carroll's book, as well as the wonderful wordplay. But this film was an extremely ambitious undertaking for its time, and it achieves nearly all of what it set out to accomplish. I'll rate it 9 out of 10.