The 1949 film of Alice In Wonderland combines live action and puppets. Two versions, one English and one French, were filmed at the same time.The film was mostly produced by French film makers. The studio scenes were filmed in France and the Oxford scenes filmed on location. The director is Dallas Bower, the screenplay for the French version is by Maurice Auberge and Maurice Griffe, the screenplay for the English is by Henry Meyers, Albert E Lewin and Edward Eliscu. The Wikipedia says the film wasn't released in the UK until 1985 due to the unflattering portrayal of Queen Victoria. It wasn't released in the US until 1951 and Disney tried to stop the release because they were releasing their own Alice In Wonderland that same year. Disney didn't get their 18 month delay and the film was released but didn't do so well.
Carol Marsh plays Alice, it was her second movie, her first was Brighton Rock.
Sadly, that's an image screencap from the DVD I have. It's a 3 disc set called The Classic Age Of Fantasy that was $5.95 at Hamilton Books. There are a dozen films totaling 953 minutes. I had some of the films in other cheap multi film packs but not all of them. The Borrowers, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Ali Baba and the Seven Saracens, The Magic Sword, Alice in Wonderland, Jack and the Beanstalk, Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon, The Jungle Book, Tarzan's Revenge, Liane, Jungle Goddess, and The Savage Girl.
The movie is available at Amazon Prime and the quality is just the same. I read that the original negatives were damaged. Too bad, I like the sets and props, it would be nice to see them better.
A lot of Alice's shots were done without the puppets. Carol is the only human while in Wonderland.
I liked the production, poor video aside, and was glad to have picked this up. There's a DVD of the movie on Amazon, it's 10 smackaroonies, I'm betting that it's the same copy, it's a shady looking DVD. I'll be happy with this. Really, how often will I watch it again, once maybe, who knows.
You can see a copy of either the French or English version on YouTube. Links above.
I'm pretty sure I've seen these in the past but I'll have to go check them again. Hm, then again, maybe I haven't seen the French one.
Posted by: Gary S Mattingly | February 05, 2019 at 02:08 PM