ALICE IN WONDERINGLAND

For several days, last week, it was a case of "Will you, Won't you, Will you, Won't you, Will you" be able to see Disney's release of Tim Burton's film, Alice in Wonderland, in 3D at an Odeon cinema near you.

The dispute raged over Disney's intention to reduce the time between the film's release and its being issued on DVD from the conventional 17 weeks to a mere 12 weeks. For the cinema chains, who have been investing millions in new projection equipment to screen 3D films, this was unacceptable because films with huge appeal that might play longer in theatres would be threatened by early 'Coming soon on DVD' posters.

Disney, like other studios, are aware that DVD sales fell last year by 10% and want to rejuvenate the home entertainment part of their business (up until now the most lucrative) by getting DVDs of films out into the marketplace while there is still public awareness of titles and in the (probably vain) hope of preventing some of the piracy currently eating into their revenue.

The face-off was dramatic and although finally resolved (on terms that neither party are willing to divulge) it has, ultimately, probably only succeeded in boosting the already considerable hype about the latest Burton movie!


Tim Burton's revisionist take on Britain's seminal children's classic is the latest in a LONG line of interpretations (rarely beautiful, often bizarre, sometimes beastly and frequently bland) that demonstrate just how swiftly and completely Carroll's unorthodox Victorian imagination touched a universal consciousness. Alice, her dream-world, the characters she met there and the conversations she had quickly became - and have remained - part of international popular culture.

The first film version, silent and running for 8 minutes, was made in 1903 - just five years after Carroll's death - by British film pioneer, Cecil Hepworth...

Walt Disney had a long fascination with Carroll's book and one of his earliest (pre-Mickey Mouse) series was 'Alice in Cartoonland', featuring a live-action child in an animated world. None of the familiar Carroll characters appeared but the fact that the pilot for the series was entitled Alice's Wonderland tells you the source of Disney's inspiration.

As soon as the possibility of making animated features became a reality, Disney was itching to put Alice on film and would have done so sooner had he not been pipped to the post in 1933 by Paramount Pictures who produced the first of a long-line of star-laden Alices. Tim Burton - as I hardly need remind you - has a cast led by Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham-Carter, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Anne Hathaway, Matt Lucas, Michael Sheen and Sir Christopher Lee. Back in 1933, Paramount trotted out W C Fields, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Edward Everett Horton, Edna May Oliver and a dozen others.

Disney bided his time and, in 1936, made-do with a Carroll-inspired Mickey Mouse short called Thru the Mirror...

Eventually, in 1951, Disney got to take us on that full-length animated expedition he'd been envisaging for two decades.

Here's the trailer...

Walt's excursion into Wonderland wasn't the success he had hoped for: perhaps because it lacked the sentimental, romantic appeal of the studio's established line in Prince-and-Princess fairy-tales and because it outraged purists critics - especially in the UK.

Now, in a more culturally-tolerant era, Disney is back in a Wonderland of sorts in company with Mr Burton, cinema's tirelessly inventive enfant terrible...

So, what are we to make of this film which opens today?

Well, first it has to be said - probably sooner rather than later - that this is not Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, or a version of it, or a sequel to it. It is a Burtonesque phantasmagoria that trips the dark fantastic in the way only Mr B can do!

The names of many of characters are the same or similar to the well-known denizens of Wonderland and Looking-glass-world, but they are their own selves and the Alice who blunders into their realm is, some of the residents think, the Wrong Alice!

In fact, things are even topsy-turvyier than when Carroll pitched the first Alice down the rabbit-hole 145 years ago, since the place itself turns out to be not Wonderland but Underland!

Once all that is understood, you'll have no trouble with the Queen of Hearts morphing with the Red Queen and being at war with the White Queen or the story's New Alice (aged 19), clad in white armour, riding forth like Joan of Arc to slay the Jabberwocky (sic) with the vorpal sword that the Red Queen has kept locked in the courtyard kennel of the Bandersnatch...

I could go on, but you get the drift and any further revelations can only spoil the surprises!

However, you can hear more of my thoughts on the new Alice on BBC Radio 2's Arts Show tonight at around 10:30 pm, when presenter, Claudia Winkleman, will be playing an interview I had with Tim Burton and, afterwards, talking with me about the film

And, if you miss it you can catch the broadcast for the next seven days on BBC iPlayer.