An awfully odd, offbeat black-and-white adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic book, directed by Jonathan Miller for the BBC. It’s not exactly fun and I’m unconvinced that a child audience today would enjoy it. You have to know the book already, as many characters are unrecognisable because they are presented as humans rather than animals. I think it tries too hard to be modern.
Alice is moody-looking and bohemian, with a thick mane of hair which sometimes covers her face. She doesn’t fall down a rabbit hole, instead venturing through a tunnel and along the corridors of a weird stately home. She rarely speaks, but we hear her thoughts. When she gets taller or shrinks, we don’t see the transformation occurring; suddenly, she has changed size. She does not cry, but has a brief vision of the pool of tears. Instead of a wet crowd of animals, there are fussily-dressed Victorians, whose version of the caucus race is a jive in a church to a soundtrack of hymns, ending with a brawl. Instead of a caterpillar, a scholarly man with impressive side-whiskers dusting an architectural model in a library. The ‘Pig and Pepper’ segment is quite similar to the book and is often left out of other adaptations, while the Mad Hatter’s tea party has a lot of dialogue from the original but has all the party atmosphere of a doctor’s waiting room. The Queen of Hearts’ entourage, instead of a pack of cards, are a mismatched collection of people in various outfits. I spotted Eric Idle among them. According to IMDb, another uncredited appearance is Angelo Muscat (the butler in The Prisoner). Other well-known actors in the film include Michael Redgrave, John Gielgud, Peter Cook and Leo McKern. The Mock Turtle segment is included, another of those which tends to be cut from other adaptations. The weirdest part of the film is the trial, in which a topless man can be seen shaving and there is the sound of a chicken clucking throughout, which rises into a cacophony of droning and grunts.
If you’re on a mission to watch every adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, or are interested in 1960s experimental films, this is a must-watch, but otherwise I wouldn’t recommend it.
Image taken from BBC iPlayer website.