Alice in Wonderland

The first sound version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND exists in a shoddy copy, with fuzzy details, an echoing sound track, and performers who seem to be reciting their lines instead of performing them, even when they are not doing Lewis Carroll's butchering of popular children's songs of his era. The characters are made up for pantomime, as they typically were on stage and in the movies, but Bud Pollard's cast of unknown and forgotten performers aren't much fun. You can skip this one.

The first "talking" movie version of "Alice in Wonderland," produced in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1931, two years before Paramount's all-star production. Ruth Gilbert stars as Lewis Carroll's heroine in this black and white featurette (running under an hour) directed by Bud Pollard.

I'd been casually searching for a copy for years, and finally managed to get ahold of a DVD copy of a pretty battered 16mm print.

Well. It's about what you'd expect for a 1931 talkie -- a creaky curiosity of a film with overly broad acting, awkward pauses, rudimentary costumes and sets and a primitive-sounding soundtrack.

I have a hard time imagining that anyone enjoyed watching this, even in 1931; it comes across as little more than a filmed community theater production of "Alice" without any real sense of Carroll's wit or whimsy. (Then again, that's how I also feel about the 1933 movie starring Charlotte Henry, despite its higher production values.) The climactic trial of the Knave of Hearts does boast a decidedly shocking twist not found in the book that probably had Lewis Carroll turning in his grave.

A heavily made-up Ruth Gilbert was about 18 when she played Alice; a little of her "little girl" routine goes a long way. Now and then she tries to affect what may have been a trans-Atlantic accent, but most of the time she carries on like a Broadway chorine. (When confronted by the other characters toward the end, this all-too-American Alice yells at them, "Come on, all of you! Who's afraid of a paltry pack of cards!")

Still, despite its shortcomings, this film remains interesting from a historical perspective, not only as the first sound "Alice," but also as a reminder of Fort Lee's prominent place in early film history.

THE STORY & GENRE -- The Lewis Carroll classic, genre. Ruth Gilbert stars.

THE VERDICT -- It has guts, but no brains. Calling the Wizard of Oz! You should watch this only for curiosity interest.

FREE ONLINE -- Yes, commonly at 51 minutes, but sometimes 53 minutes, although IMDB says 55 minutes, and Wiki 58 minutes.

I had no idea this curio even existed--I found it while looking for the 1933 version. It's not bad for an independent production of its era. The performances and costumes are fair enough, on the level of a decent stage production for children, even if most of the actors don't address their dialogue to each other--they stare straight forward while speaking, as if reading their lines off cue cards. The sets reveal the limited budgetary means, which of course counts in a fantasy like this--Wonderland feels no more surreal or magical than any random assortment of recycled theatrical backdrops and props.

Things start shockingly with an original Irving Berlin song (the film was shot in New York, and must have exploited some Broadway ties), but that opening-credits tune is the first and last we hear. Tonally, it does have more of Carroll's tart absurdism than many subsequent screen interpretations. However, the pedestrian execution makes it less than persuasive as entertainment either for kids or for adults.

As others have said, this Alice looks too old, but otherwise she's perfectly all right. She went onto a long career mostly on stage (including several premiere Eugene O'Neill productions) and in early television. This movie doesn't really work, but as a whimsical misfire it's not really any worse than Paramount's big-budget, starry "Alice" a couple years later. And it's short enough to satisfy your curiosity without turning into a real slog. Yes, it's "stagy," but no more so than most movies that came out in 1931.

This first sound film strip of Lewis Carroll's literary classic can be seen as a B-movie attempt even by the standards of the time, but the film was definitely shot on a very low budget. The unknown actors, the still inexperienced director and the incomplete craftsmanship behind the scenes are undermined in their effect by the madness of the visual design, because: The costumes and scenery are, also due to the often taken frontal shots and the interspersed songs, today probably the Stuff little devils were made of. Creepy masks, grotesque and not just cheap-looking backdrops, as well as the facial expressions of the leading actress Ruth Gilbert, consistently take the viewer on a historical-cinematic journey through time in images that could be recycled in places into nightmare sequences of modern films today. It's a pity, of course, above all, the severely slimmed down version of the original novel, which hardly gives the actors and those working in the background air to breathe original air. In principle, one has to state that hardly a book page was left unturned to squeeze this story into just over 50 minutes of film. This film is above all interesting, due to its historical side effects, it - and above all its promo pictures - triggered a real Alice hype in the then cosmos of theater and cinematic acting. However, Bud Pollard's version of the story itself could not benefit from this long-term effect and in cinematic fashion this picture finds its long-term effect above all through the nature of the shots and the crazy and terrifying costumes. If you plan to write a book about the history of the Carroll film adaptations, you should take a look at this film, because the strip has its place in this series. But looking in for fun would not do justice to this period photograph and such a project would only be very promising if you use historical glasses with lenses cast from a love of cinema. All in all a piece of contemporary history, but paradoxically not a big hit for the cinema itself.