The Cinematheque

“Disney never again [made] another film like it … Alice​’s originality lies in the conflict between the spirit of Carroll … and a desire to popularize, to introduce a zany element … The animation throughout is a delight.”

Robin Allan, Sight and Sound

This summer we’re showing two sides of one of the classics of children’s literature! Walt Disney read Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in school, and the idea to adapt it followed him through decades of his career. Disney first oversaw shorts that combined an actor with animation, and then planned a feature version. But it wasn’t until he saw Mary Blair’s bold, modern drawings, which used colour and scale to truly fit the surreal source text, that he saw a way forward. Disney’s sensibility, of lessons for suburbia and realistic character-based emotions, could seem quite the odd fit for Carroll’s world of illogic and curiosity; yet the film’s Alice, a heroine without any need for a prince, endures as an iconic interpretation, along with its Cheshire Cat and White Rabbit. This brand-new restoration, which premiered in May at the TCM Festival, is from the nitrate negative and preserves, unlike previous releases, the film’s original cel-animated, 35mm-printed look.