Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972 film)

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice-poster-1972.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by William Sterling
Written byWilliam Sterling
Don Black (lyrics)
Lewis Carroll (novel)
Based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
by Lewis Carroll
Produced byDerek Horne
Starring Fiona Fullerton
Cinematography Geoffrey Unsworth
Edited by Peter Weatherley
Music by John Barry
Production
company
Josef Shaftel Productions
Distributed by Fox-Rank Distributors
Release dates
  • 20 November 1972 (20 November 1972)
(United States)
  • 4 December 1972 (4 December 1972)
(United Kingdom)
Running time
101 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£700,000 [1] or $1.5 million [2]
Box office$9.1 million [3]

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a 1972 British musical film directed by Australian filmmaker William Sterling, based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel of the same name and its 1871 sequel, Through the Looking-Glass . It had a distinguished ensemble cast and a musical score composed by John Barry with lyrics written by Don Black. In addition, make-up artist Stuart Freeborn created film visuals based on the original drawings by John Tenniel from the first edition of the novel. [4]

Contents

At the 26th British Academy Film Awards, the film won both of its nominated categories, including Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design.

Plot

Alice is a little girl living in England. One day, she sees a white rabbit, follows it and ends up getting swept away in a rabbit hole to Wonderland, a place unlike anything she has seen before. There, Alice finds a door and realizes it is too small for her. She finds a bottle that says “Drink Me”, drinks it and starts to get smaller. However, Alice realizes she will not be able to go through the door without the key. Alice then finds a cookie that reads “Eat Me”. While eating it, Alice grows in size again, starts singing about how big she is and cries. Her tears flood the room, and she becomes small again. Alice starts to find talking animals, like the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit. Alice ends up at the rabbit's house and drinks a bottle to change sizes again. Alice ends up being too big for the White Rabbit, so she changes back to her regular size. She joins a tea party, with a man named the Mad Hatter, eventually gets fed up with Wonderland's inhabitants and returns home.

Cast

Production

Casting

It was originally intended to cast an actress who was close to the age of Alice in the original book. They began their search looking for girls who were between seven and ten years old. This concept was later scrapped when they realized that most girls of that age "lose their teeth, lisp a great deal, and have short attention spans." [5]

When the decision was made to audition older actresses, the director, William Sterling, orchestrated a nationwide search across Great Britain for an unknown young actress to play the title role of Alice. Over 2,000 [6] girls between the ages of thirteen to seventeen auditioned for this highly sought after role. This search had been considered to be one of the biggest in the UK since Franco Zeffirelli's search for the roles of Romeo and Juliet six years earlier.

Some actresses who auditioned for the role of Alice included Lynne Frederick, Rosalyn Landor, Karen Dotrice, Deborah Makepeace, and Chloe Franks. Landor, [7] who had just turned thirteen at the time, impressed everyone at her audition and was asked back a few times, but the producers and director ultimately decided that she was too young. Frederick [8] was nearly eighteen at the time of her audition, and after doing a few screen tests was deemed too sophisticated and mature for the part. Landor and Frederick were later cast in the Lionel Jeffries film The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972), which came out the same year as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972).

Fifteen year old Fiona Fullerton was ultimately cast as Alice. For the role of Alice, Fullerton had her long hip length brown hair dyed chestnut blonde. Fullerton would later star on stage in London's West End in the musicals Camelot and Nymph Errant , singing on both productions' cast recordings. [9] [10]

Robert Helpmann had worked with Sterling several times in Australia. [11]

Deleted scenes

Two songs appear on the film's soundtrack but are not in the final cut of the film: "I've Never Been This Far Before" performed by Alice when she enters the garden outside the Queen of Heart's palace, and "The Moral Song" sung by the Duchess to Alice during the Croquet Game. [12] A dialogue scene was filmed between Alice and the Cheshire Cat, with the latter perched in a tree. Although some stills survive, the footage itself was cut from the final print and may no longer exist. [13]

Soundtrack

The Duchess Is Waiting
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Michael Crawford
Curiouser And Curiouser
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Fiona Fullerton
You've Got To Know When To Stop
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Davy Kaye
The Royal Processions
Music by John Barry
The Last Word Is Mine
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Michael Crawford and Fiona Fullerton
Digging For Apples
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Freddie Earlle
There Goes Bill
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Freddie Earlle and Mike Elles
How Doth The Little Crocodile
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Fiona Fullerton
Dum And Dee Dance (Nursery Rhyme)
Lyrics by Lewis Carroll and Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Fiona Fullerton
From The Queen, An Invitation for the Duchess To Play Croquet
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Peter O'Farrell and Ian Trigger
The Duchess's Lullaby
Lyrics by Lewis Carroll and Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Peter Bull and Patsy Rowlands
It's More Like A Pig Than A Baby
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Fiona Fullerton
I See What I Eat
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Fiona Fullerton
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Robert Helpmann, Dudley Moore
The Pun Song
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Robert Helpmann, Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore and Fiona Fullerton
Off With Their Heads
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Flora Robson
The Croquet Game
Music by John Barry
Off With Their Heads (Reprise)
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Flora Robson
I've Never Been This Far Before
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Fiona Fullerton
The Moral Song
Lyrics by Lewis Carroll and Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Peter Bull
The Me I Never Knew
Lyrics by Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Fiona Fullerton
The Lobster Quadrille (The Mock Turtle's Song)
Music by John Barry
Will You Walk A Little Faster, Said A Whiting to a Snail
Lyrics by Lewis Carroll and Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Michael Hordern and Spike Milligan
They Told Me (Evidence Read at the Trial of the Knave of Hearts)
Lyrics by Lewis Carroll and Don Black
Music by John Barry
Performed by Michael Crawford

Reception

Box office

The film was one of the most popular movies of the year at the British box office in 1973. [14]

Accolades

AwardCategoryNominee(s)ResultRef.
British Academy Film Awards Best Cinematography Geoffrey Unsworth (also for Cabaret )Won [15]
Best Costume Design Anthony Mendleson (also for Macbeth and Young Winston )Won

Home media

The film has been released on VHS and DVD several times.

Related Research Articles

<i>Alices Adventures in Wonderland</i> 1865 childrens novel by Lewis Carroll

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. The artist John Tenniel provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the book.

Hatter (<i>Alices Adventures in Wonderland</i>) Fictional character in Alices Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

The Hatter is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll's 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. He is very often referred to as the Mad Hatter, though this term was never used by Carroll. The phrase "mad as a hatter" pre-dates Carroll's works. The Hatter and the March Hare are referred to as "both mad" by the Cheshire Cat, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in the sixth chapter titled "Pig and Pepper".

<i>Alice in Wonderland</i> (1951 film) Animated film by Walt Disney

Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. The production was supervised by Ben Sharpsteen, and was directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske. With the voices of Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna and Kathryn Beaumont in her film debut, the film follows a young girl, Alice, who falls down a rabbit hole and enters a nonsensical world, Wonderland, which is ruled by the Queen of Hearts, while encountering strange creatures, including the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat.

Duchess (<i>Alices Adventures in Wonderland</i>) Fictional character

The Duchess is a character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, published in 1865. Carroll does not describe her physically in much detail, although as stated in Chapter 9, "Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess was very ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice’s shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin." Her hideous appearance and short stature is strongly established in the popular imagination thanks to John Tenniel's illustrations and from context it is clear that Alice finds her quite unattractive.

<i>Adventures in Wonderland</i> (1992 TV series) 1992 American TV series or program

Adventures in Wonderland is a 1992–95 American live-action/puppet musical television series based on the novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) by Lewis Carroll as well as the 1951 animated film. In the series, Alice, is portrayed as a girl who can come and go from Wonderland simply by walking through her mirror.

<i>Alice in Wonderland</i> (1999 film) 1999 television film by Nick Willing

Alice in Wonderland is a 1999 made-for-television film adaptation of Lewis Carroll's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871). It was first broadcast on NBC and then shown on British television on Channel 4.

Works based on <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>

Lewis Carroll's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) have been highly popular in their original forms, and have served as the basis for many subsequent works since they were published. They have been adapted directly into other media, their characters and situations have been appropriated into other works, and these elements have been referenced innumerable times as familiar elements of shared culture. Simple references to the two books are too numerous to list; this list of works based on Alice in Wonderland focuses on works based specifically and substantially on Carroll's two books about the character of Alice.

<i>Fushigi no Kuni no Alice</i> Japanese anime television series

Fushigi no Kuni no Alice is an anime adaptation of the 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which ran on the TV Tokyo network and other local television stations across Japan from October 10, 1983 to March 26, 1984. The television series was a Japanese-German co-production between Nippon Animation and Apollo Films. The television series consists of 52 episodes, but only 26 made it to the United States.

"How Doth the Little Crocodile" is a poem by Lewis Carroll that appears in chapter 2 of his 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice recites it while attempting to recall "Against Idleness and Mischief" by Isaac Watts. It describes a crafty crocodile that lures fish into its mouth with a welcoming smile.

<i>Alice in Wonderland</i> (1988 film) 1988 Australian 51-minute direct-to-video animated film

Alice in Wonderland is an Australian 51-minute direct-to-video animated film from Burbank Films Australia originally released in 1988.

<i>Alice in Wonderland</i> (1949 film) 1949 French film

Alice in Wonderland is a 1949 French film based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 fantasy novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Directed by Dallas Bower, the film stars Carol Marsh as Alice, Stephen Murray as Lewis Carroll, and Raymond Bussières as The Tailor. Most of the Wonderland characters are portrayed by stop-motion animated puppets created by Lou Bunin.

<i>Alice in Wonderland</i> (1915 film) 1915 American film

Alice in Wonderland is a 1915 American silent film adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic 1865 novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, directed and written by W. W. Young and starring Viola Savoy as Alice.

<i>Alices Adventures in Wonderland</i> (1910 film) 1910 American film

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a 10-minute black-and-white silent film made in the United States in 1910, and is based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 book of the same name.

<i>Alice in Wonderland</i> (1931 film) 1931 film

Alice in Wonderland (1931) is an independently made black-and-white Pre-Code American film based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, directed by Bud Pollard, produced by Hugo Maienthau, and filmed at Metropolitan Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Pat (<i>Alices Adventures in Wonderland</i>) Fictional character

Pat is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. He appears in the chapter "The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill." He works for the White Rabbit like his friend Bill the Lizard. Carroll never gives any description of the character other than being a gardener, and his species has been widely debated, with evidence showing he is likely to be a monkey or a guinea pig.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wonderland (fictional country)</span> Setting of Alices Adventures in Wonderland

Wonderland is the setting for Lewis Carroll's 1865 children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a ballet in three acts by Christopher Wheeldon with a scenario by Nicholas Wright, based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. It was commissioned by The Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, and the National Ballet of Canada, and had its world premiere on Monday, 28 February 2011. The music by Joby Talbot is the first full-length score for the Royal Ballet in 20 years. It is also the first full-length narrative ballet commissioned by The Royal Ballet since 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portrayals of Alice in Wonderland</span> Fictional character

Alice, the main protagonist of Lewis Carroll's novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871), has been adapted to several media.

<i>Alice in Wonderland</i> (1981 film) Soviet animated film

Alice in Wonderland is a 1981 Soviet animated film based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It was produced by Kievnauchfilm and directed by Yefrem Pruzhanskyy. It originally aired on Ukrainian television in three parts.

References

  1. Alexander Walker, National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties, Harrap, 1985 p 126
  2. "The summer visitors". The Bulletin. 6 January 1973. p. 24.
  3. Donahue, Suzanne Mary (1987). American film distribution : the changing marketplace. UMI Research Press. p. 292. ISBN   9780835717762. Please note figures are for rentals in US and Canada
  4. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland(1972)". Yahoo movies. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  5. Scott, Vernon (26 December 1972). "What would Lewis Carroll think? Alice's musical wonderland". Detroit News.
  6. Scott, Vernon (26 December 1972). "What would Lewis Carroll think? Alice's musical wonderland". Detroit News.
  7. "The Amazing Mr Blunden: Interview: Rosalyn Landor". Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy & Horror!. 11 March 2013.
  8. Edwards, Jonathan (1 January 2020). "Lynne Frederick Remembered » We Are Cult". We Are Cult. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  9. "Jay Records - Camelot".
  10. https://www.loc.gov/item/smor.19331006/ [ dead link ]
  11. Vagg, Stephen (2023). "Forgotten Australian Television Plays – Half an Hour with Robert Helpmann". Filmink. Retrieved 2 August 2024.
  12. "Alice's in Wonderland Original Motion Picture Soundtrack re-released by FSM Silver Age Classics, liner notes by Jon Burlingame
  13. "Las aventuras de Alicia (1972)". IMDb.
  14. Swern, Phil (1995). The Guinness book of box office hits. Guinness Publishing. p. 192. ISBN   9780851126708.
  15. "BAFTA Awards (1973)". British Academy of Film and Television Arts . Retrieved 23 November 2013.