Mum's Monday: Alice in Wonderland (1933)

Over the years there have been many versions of this film, spin offs and adaptations, however, I want to focus on this one and how some of it has been done well for its time but some of it is lacking in standing the test of time.

We first see Alice (Charlotte Henry) in an English Victorian home, bored. It is snowing outside so Alice is not allowed out for fear of being caught in the cold and becoming ill. This does start the story off on a good note. Nowadays, however, we have better clothing, so Alice quite possible would be out with her friends, building snowmen, having snowball fights or sledging down a nearest slope.

Alice is talking to the items in the room including the chess pieces on their board. This sets up the future characters we see later on, which is done well. When she looks into the mirror and imagines the world in the reflection, this is when the fascination begins. Alice falls asleep and is dreaming when she goes through the mirror. The special effects are extremely well done for its time and it does seem real and would still be good today.

When Alice eats a mushroom and grows too big she cries for no reason other than to set up her swimming in her tears after when she then eats another mushroom and shrinks and then goes through a small door into the garden. First we see her swimming with the door closed next we see her swimming in what looks like a garden pond. Then a Dodo talks her dry – and I don’t mean the dodo talks for so long she dries naturally – the dodo literally talks her dry. This is a really poor script and not thought out at all, imagination or not this could have been done better, if we a just shown her swimming under the door.

There are parts of the script that are clever. When we see the white roses being painted red because the Queen likes red roses and white ones were planted by mistake; was a good homage to the original story. Although it is a black and white film, all the script is there to know what is happening. Another clever part is when it is explained that the hours of learning are cut each time from 10 to 1 – that is why they are called lessons. These two parts are the best parts of the film and make sense.

The costumes are put together well, however, Mock Turtle look like it has a cow’s head. The script and storyline lack when the white knight keeps falling off his horse for no reason, Tweedledee and Tweedledum are running and there’s no explanation as of why. All you have to do is look away for a few seconds and Alice is in a totally different scene, and then the only reason we know that she has now met a queen is because Alice curtseys and is told to call her “your majesty”. Other than that, I had no idea what was happening.

The scenes are not linked, it is all disjointed and really hard to watch. It is a relief when Alice wakes up. When I started watching this I thought it started well and I had high hopes only to be disappointed and let down by the end.