"Alice in Wonderland" ,1915, starring Viola Savoy is a silent film adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, directed and written by W.W. Young. This film version is notable for depicting the 'Father William' poem in its entirety and it includes an image of Tenniel's illustration of Father William doing his back-somersault at the front door. "Finding a recorded copy may be hard to do, but not impossible. There are at least two versions that have survived from the original, both lasting approximately forty minutes. The original was a six-reeler, or about an hour long, which may also have included scenes from the "Through the Looking Glass" story. Minimally, what has survived is missing the defining scene early in the story where Alice grows very big and than small, then later the Mad Hatter scene. We know that these scenes were originally included because Grosset & Dunlap published a book version in 1916, illustrated with pictures from this film. This shows that in addition there was also an Oyster, Humpty Dumpty, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, chess room, and a Queen Alice Banquet scene, but whether as part of this film or another is not clear." (Cipher-) "It's just one tenuously connected pastiche. Throughout, Alice is never phased by the sights around her. She just flitters and twitters and bounds like Alice Cullen on a sugar high! (To that end, the girl playing Alice, 16 year old Viola Savoy, was very good in the role, that of giddy little girl). I will concede, though, that you can't have much depth and development in a 52 minute silent feature. There were things I appreciated that made this a worthwhile, unique experience. One, this was filmed outside in sunny northern California. Real trees, real lawns and a real beach for the quadrille, all give this a faint sort of otherworldly yet realistic atmosphere. The costumes are also great. Full body, of course, but resembling the sorts of drawings one might see in one of the story's editions. Inside are little people for an appropriate scale, which is also unique and inventive. Some characters are crude puppets (Cheshire Cat, the Mock Turtle), but otherwise it's effective. But because it's silent, that unique language and rhythm that so defines this world is gone. You're left looking at images of a girl and actors in animal costumes dancing stiffly. And I think a small chunk was missing! At one point Alice says (by proxy), "I'm going to visit the March Hare." But then it goes right to the croquet scene. Later, at the trial, we see both Mad Hatter and March Hare, and in a way that it feels like they were in the movie earlier. I imagine this film must have looked quite fanciful in its day." (Brandon L. Summers, "Film Obscurities", 2010) The character has been said to be based on Alice Liddell, a child friend of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). Dodgson said several times that his "little heroine" was not based on any real child, but was entirely fictional. Alice is portrayed as a quaintly logical girl, sometimes even pedantic, especially with Humpty Dumpty in the second book. According to the sequel, she is seven and a half years old, but seems to conduct herself like a somewhat older child. The first book takes place on 4 May, Alice Liddell's birthday. The second takes place on 4 November, her half-birthday (and Alice states that she is "seven and a half exactly"). In April 1887, Carroll wrote in "Alice on the Stage:" "What wert thou, dream-Alice in thy foster-father's eyes? How shall he picture thee? Loving first, loving and gentle: loving as a dog (forgive the prosaic simile, but I know no earthly love so pure and perfect) and gentle as a fawn: then courteous—courteous to all, high or low, grand or grotesque, King or Caterpillar, even as though she were herself a King's daughter, and her clothing wrought of gold: then trustful, ready to accept the wildest impossibilities with all that utter trust that only dreamers know; and lastly, curious—wildly curious, and with the eager enjoyment of Life that comes only in the happy hours of childhood, when all is new and fair, and when Sin and Sorrow are but names — empty words signifying nothing!" Resources: wikipedia.org, archive.org New soundtrack and dubbing: CinemaHistoryChannel Music: Kevin Mac Leod (incompetch.com) licensed under Creative Commons licence: Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

• published: 13 Sep 2013
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