Alice in Wonderland [DVD] [1966] [Re...
May Clark, Cecil M...
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Alice in Wonderland (1903)
| Directed by | Cecil Hepworth Percy Stow |
|---|---|
| Written by | Lewis Carroll (book) Cecil M. Hepworth |
| Starring | May Clark (Alice) Cecil M. Hepworth Mrs. Cecil Hepworth (The Red Queen) Norman Whitten Stanley Faithfull |
| Cinematography | Cecil M. Hepworth, Geoffrey Faithfull |
| Production Company | Hepworth Manufacturing Co. |
| Distributed by |
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company Edison Manufacturing Company Kleine Optical Company |
| Release date(s) | October 17, 1903 |
| Running time | 8 min |
| Country |
United Kingdom |
| Language | Silent film, b/w, 8 mins. |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) is a novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, known under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit-hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar and anthropomorphic creatures. Lewis Carroll's character is arguably a bit questionable concerning his relationship with Alice Liddell for whom many believe he wrote the the "Alice" and the "Through the Looking Glass" stories.
A lot of work went into the making of this film. Costumes were based on the original drawings of Sir John Tenniel – Carroll’s original illustrator for the book. And Hepworth and Stow devised some innovative "trick shots" especially for the film.
Read about the story here. Read an excellent synopsis of the film here by Simon Brown.
Read about the painstaking restoration of the last surviving print by the BFI here. According to Bryony Dixon of the BFI, it seems to have been one of the oldest colour (or at least, tinted) films in British Film history.
| The newly restored film will be publicly available to view on the BFI website www.bfi.org.uk and in BFI Mediatheques around the UK from early March 2010, completely free of charge |
The BFI notes for the film state:
|
This
is the first movie version of Lewis Caroll's novel "Alice in Wonderland",
directed by Cecil Hepworth. The copy is bad, but - in some degree -
watchable. There is only one known copy of this film remaining (except, of
course, the BBC re-issues from 1966) so the British Film Institute are
unable to restore the missing parts. Parts of the movie are lost but what
remains is available as a bonus feature on the 1966 BBC DVD.
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 good special effects for the early 1900s of Alice shrinking and growing in the doll house. This was a ground breaking film for its time, cameraman Geoffrey Faithfull being credited for the work, which demanded some new ideas to make the special effect work.
The production featured local schoolchildren.
Location
Alice in Wonderland (1903) was filmed in the grounds of Mount Felix house in Walton on Thames. Mount Felix, which has long since been mostly demolished, was just across the road from the Hepworth Studios in Hurst Grove, in a beautiful location beside the river and Walton Bridge.
You can see photos of Mount Felix here and a good history of the area is here.
External Links
-
Alice in Wonderland available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
