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Alice in Wonderland | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Norman Z. McLeod |
Screenplay by | |
Based on | Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll |
Produced by | Louis D. Lighton (uncredited) |
Starring | |
Cinematography | |
Edited by | Ellsworth Hoagland (uncredited) |
Music by | Dimitri Tiomkin |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 77 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Alice in Wonderland is a 1933 American pre-Code fantasy film adapted from the novels by Lewis Carroll. The film was produced by Paramount Pictures, featuring an all-star cast. It is all live action, except for the Walrus and The Carpenter sequence, which was animated by Harman-Ising Studio. The film was seen by Walt Disney, and inspired him create his company's 1951 animated adaptation. [1]
Stars include W. C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Edna May Oliver as the Red Queen, Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle, Gary Cooper as The White Knight, Edward Everett Horton as The Hatter, Charles Ruggles as The March Hare, Richard Arlen as the Cheshire Cat, Baby LeRoy as The Joker, and Charlotte Henry in her first leading role as Alice.
This adaptation was directed by Norman Z. McLeod from a screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and William Cameron Menzies, based on Lewis Carroll's books Alice in Wonderland (1865) and Alice Through the Looking-Glass (1871). It also drew heavily from Eva Le Gallienne and Florida Friebus's then-recent stage adaptation.
When Paramount previewed the film in 1933, the original running time was 90 minutes. By the time it was shown to the press, it was truncated to 77 minutes. Many reviews, including the savage one in Variety, made a point of how long it seemed at an hour-and-a-quarter. Though being released at this shorter time, it is often mistakenly reported that Universal Pictures edited it when it bought the television rights in the late 1950s.[2] Universal released the film on DVD on March 2, 2010, as the first home video release.
It is the only major live-action Hollywood theatrical production to adapt the original Alice stories. The next major live-action Hollywood production to do so is a two-part adaptation for television in 1985, and the second major live-action Hollywood production for movie theaters to use the title Alice in Wonderland was made by Tim Burton for Disney in 2010 as a sequel to the original story.