Alice in Wonderland (1972)

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Movie
German title Alice in Wonderland
Original title Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 1972
length 101 minutes
Rod
Director William Sterling
script William Sterling
production Derek Horne
music John Barry
camera Geoffrey Unsworth
cut Peter Weatherley
occupation

Alice in Wonderland (original title Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ) is a British musical film by William Sterling from 1972 , the film exploited Lewis Carroll's children 's book Alice in Wonderland . Fiona Fullerton plays the title role . The film features some of the most famous British actors at the time, such as Michael Crawford in the role of White Rabbit, Dudley Moore as the dormouse, Ralph Richardson as the caterpillar, Flora Robson as the Queen of Hearts and Peter Sellers as the March Hare.

action

Alice is on a picnic with her sisters and Reverend Dodgson. When the Reverend reads a story to the girls, Alice falls asleep and falls into a deep hole. At the bottom of a confusing new world, Alice sees a white rabbit that she wants to follow. However, she ends up in a room with many locked doors. In fact, she finds a key that can be used to unlock the smallest of the doors. However, Alice does not fit through the door because it is too big for it. Fortunately, she finds a vial and shrinks the contents. But then new difficulties arise. Ultimately, though, Alice makes it and ends up at the house of the White Rabbit. When she eats something there, it seamlessly becomes huge. The white rabbit cannot enter his house because it is filled by Alice. After Alice is little again, she flees into the forest. A rather grumpy caterpillar will help the girl get back to normal size. Next, Alice meets Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, who are preparing for a fight but are startled by a huge crow.

After a while, Alice comes to a small house with frog and fish people standing at the door to her amusement. In the kitchen Alice meets a disgruntled duchess and her abused toddler, a mentally deranged cook who throws plates around and the Cheshire Cat. Alice, sorry for the baby, takes it with her when she leaves the house. To their horror, however, it turns into a piglet.

Shortly afterwards Alice finds herself in the garden of the March Hare, where a tea party is taking place, to which the dormouse and the mad hatter have also appeared. They all sing and dance. After Alice has been insulted by the hatter, she leaves the party and returns to the entrance hall, where she shrinks again. Alice enters the palace garden through a small door, where she meets gardeners in the form of playing cards who are painting red roses. After Alice has attended a royal procession, her path leads her to the King of Hearts and the Queen of Hearts. The Queen of Hearts, of all people, is determined to have someone's head cut off. She asks Alice to play croquet with the animals and people who look like playing cards . A hedgehog represents the ball and a flamingo represents the bat. When the game ends, the Queen of Hearts condemns everyone to die. However, the King of Hearts pronounces a pardon, so the Queen of Hearts' game is over.

The Queen of Hearts wants Alice to visit a griffin who is supposed to lead her to the turtle supperich, half calf, half sea turtle. This being is supposed to tell Alice his life story and a special incident from school. Then the griffin accompanies Alice back to the Queen of Hearts castle. There the girl is attending a court hearing in which the Jack of Hearts is accused of stealing the Queen's cakes. The mad hatter is present as a witness and Alice is also called to the stand. It is now so big again that chaos is spreading. Fortunately, Alice wakes up at that moment and sees her sisters sitting next to her on the riverbank. On the way home, Alice ponders her dream and sings the song The Me I Never Knew .

production

Production notes

The film presented by American National Enterprises had a budget of 2.5 million US dollars. It is a film by Joseph Shaftel Productions, distributed by Fox-Rank. Was filmed in Shepperton Studios in Shepperton in the county of Surrey in southern England .

The makeup created by Stuart Freeborn is based on the original drawings by John Tenniel from the first edition of the book. Robert Helpmann, who can be seen as a mad hatter, was also responsible for the choreography. This film adaptation is very closely adapted to Carroll's original book. All of the important episodes and characters are also present in the film, with some of the dialogues being taken verbatim from the original text. A prologue and an epilogue were newly designed for the film.

Soundtrack

Most of the music numbers come from John Barry and Don Black . An original soundtrack album was released by Warner Bros. Records. In 2005 it was digitally remastered by Film Score Monthly.

No. Title - composer / lyricist - speaker
01. The Duchess Is Waiting - John Barry / Don Black - Michael Crawford
02. Curiouser And Curiourser - John Barry / Don Black - Fiona Fullerton
03. You've To Know When To Stop - John Barry / Don Black - Davy Kaye
04th The Royal Processions - John Barry
05. The Last Word Is Mine - John Barry / Don Black - Michael Crawford and Fiona Fullerton
06th Digging For Apples - John Barry / Don Black - Freddie Earlie
07th There Goes Bill - John Barry / Don Black - Freddie Earlie and Mike Elles
08th. How Doth The Little Busy Bee - John Barry / Don Black - Fiona Fullerton
09. Dum And Dee Dance (Nursery Rhyme) - John Barry / Lewis Carroll / Don Black - Fiona Fullerton
10. From The Queen An Invitation For The Duchess To Play Croquette - John Barry / Don Black - Peter O'Farrell and Ian Trigger
11. The Duchess' Lullaby - John Barry / Lewis Carroll / Don Black - Peter Bull and Patsy Rowlands
12. It's More Like A Pig Than A Baby - John Barry / Don Black - Fiona Fullerton
13. I See What I Eat - John Barry / Don Black - Robert Helpmann, Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore and Fiona Fullerton
14th Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat - John Barry / Don Black - Robert Helpmann, Peter Sellers
15th The Pun Song - John Barry / Don Black - Robert Helpmann, Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore and Fiona Fullerton
16. Off With Their Heads - John Barry / Don Black - Flora Robson
17th The Croquet Game - John Barry
18th Off With Their Heads (Reprise) - John Barry / Don Black - Flora Robson
19th I've Never Been This Far Before - John Barry / Don Black - Michael Crawford and Fiona Fullerton
20th The Moral Song - John Barry / Lewis Carroll / Don Black - Peter Bull
21st The Me I Never Knew - John Barry / Don Black - Fiona Fullerton
22nd The Lobster Quadrille (The Mock Turtle's Song) - John Barry
23. Will You Walk A Little Faster, Said A Whiting To A Snail - John Barry / Lewis Carroll / Don Black - Michael Hordern and Mike Milligan
24. They Told Me (Evidence Read At The Trail Of The Knave Of Hearts) - John Barry / Lewis Carroll / Don Black - Michael Crawford

reception

publication

The film premiered on November 20, 1972 in Los Angeles, USA. In the United Kingdom, it was shown on December 2, 1972 at the Odeon Marble Arch in aid of the Gurkha Welfare Appeal in the presence of the Queen and singer Ringo Starr . In general, it started in the United Kingdom on April 22, 1973, in Ireland on December 22, 1972, in the Netherlands on July 19, 1973, in Turkey on April 1974, in Spain (Madrid) on December 2, 1974 and in Poland on September 12, 2013 at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia . It was also published in Australia, Brazil, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Portugal and the Soviet Union.

In Germany the film was distributed by Gloria-Farbfilm. There are various publications on DVD, but not with a German soundtrack.

criticism

The film hit theaters at a time when the British film industry was not doing well. The film, which premiered in the US at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood , was received with condescending reluctance by the critics of the time and soon disappeared from the program.

At Black Hole , the wonderful soundtrack by John Barry was particularly highlighted. The effects, which were tricky for the time, were also praised, but this could not be compensated for by a rather clumsy direction and the random nature of Alice's various adventures.

Cineoutsider acknowledges Fiona Fullerton unflattering that she is a useful Alice, but just a little too old for the role. She was 16, but had a much more mature appearance, whereas the original Alice was just 10 years old. There is a huge difference between 10 and 16 when it comes to little girls. How this classic earned its status was never understood. In short, director Sterling created a pale wonderland.

Derek Winnert, who spoke of a lovingly crafted film, saw it quite differently. The well-played film is nice and pleasant and mostly with a lot of charm, beautiful sets, costumes and well-photographed. Fiona Fullerton delivers a pretty and appealing Alice. The heavily cast roles with British actors are generally amusing, and sometimes even very entertaining. As a qualification, it was said that the film was not outstanding or particularly memorable.

DVD Beaver said it was a major disappointment, as superior stylistic settings and often grandiose effects would largely be wasted in the limping, lifeless pace of interim director William Sterling. The processing of individual points of the story was also criticized at a speed that suggests the assumption of wanting to cram as much of the original into the film as possible, but still keep to a running time that is still reasonable for children.

The Moria Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review site said this version wasn't bad. Fiona Fullerton makes Alice intelligent and kindly self-contained as she navigates a range of moods. Carroll's songs were designed in such a way that they would combine dialogue and singing reasonably effectively.

Keith Allen from Movierapture disagreed with this , who classified Fiona Fullerton's performance as completely forgotten. Visually, the film ranges from charming to cruel. Neither sets nor costumes are realistic and more likely to appear as if they were created for a stage production. The performances of the actors are similarly contradicting. Actually, there is little in the film that one can unreservedly agree with.

Alison Jane's film from Rock! Schock! Pop! who is known to be a huge Alice in Wonderland fan. It is true that she described Fullerton's performance as disinterested and hardly reminiscent of the bright-eyed little girl full of curiosity that Walt Disney had painted in our heads, and recalled Anne-Marie Mallik, who played this role uniquely. Carroll's idea is probably somewhere between the two. In conclusion, it said: This is a film that would appeal to real Alice fans, British film fans and anyone who appreciates the bigger picture. Lewis Carroll would surely agree with this fantastic presentation from start to finish.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland sS myreviewer.com (English)
  2. ↑ a b c Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland sS aliceinwonderland.evanderweb.co.uk (English, further information)
  3. ↑ Alice in Wonderland see kino-50er.de (including numerous posters). Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  4. ↑ Alice in Wonderland see wunschliste.de. Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  5. ↑ Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer: Classics of Children's and Youth Literature , Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar, 2004
  6. ↑ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland see alices-adventures-in-wonderland-1972 (English). Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  7. ↑ More Alice a musical sS cineoutsider.com (English). Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  8. ↑ Derek Winnert: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland sS derektwinnert.com (English). Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  9. ↑ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland see dvdbeaver.com (English, including film photos and film posters). Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  10. ↑ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland see moria.co.nz (English). Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  11. ↑ Keith Allen: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland sS movierapture.com (English). Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  12. ↑ Alice in Wonderland see rockshockpop.com (English). Retrieved August 20, 2018.