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UK 1903
Director: Cecil Hepworth, Percy Stow
Cast: Mayble Clark, Norman Whitten, Cecil M. Hepworth, Mrs. Cecil Hepworth, Geoffrey Faithfull
Rating: Not Rated
Release Date: 17 Oct 1903 (USA); 24 Feb 2010 (BFI restored version)
Running Time: around 8 minutes
The Movie Review
The 1st of the Wonder of Alice
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ALICE
In
WONDERLAND
(1st Alice Movie ever) |
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Every legend has a start, but not every start of a legend is a great start. Alice in Wonderland 1903 both a legend and a great movie of its time, the British early period. Not very long ago, I'm sure some of you must have seen the latest version of Alice in Wonderland being presented in 3-D technology and headlined by prominent actors such as Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Crispin Glover. Yep, the title is Alice in Wonderland 3-D (2010). And the movie is not the 2nd Alice or the 10th Alice, but it's about the 25th Alice! And all that movies before it and many other entertainment works inspired by Alice were started by this very first Alice movie directed by Cecil Hepworth.
Alice in Wonderland 1903 was based on a novel titled Alice's Adventures in Wonderland written by English author Lewis Carroll in 1865, the movie is of course a silent film. But throughout the running time we could hear Simon Brown from BBC giving a narration and explanation about the movie and the history behind it. So before you see this movie directly, I'm just gonna tell you a couple of important things of what Simon says. Basically this is the first Alice in Wonderland movie ever but it was also the longest British film which ran about 800 feet and with original running time would have been around 10 to 12 minutes. The average film of that time was only a quarter of Alice. Which makes Alice in Wonderland far exceeded any movie. So Cecil Hepworth's Alice in Wonderland is not just legendary but was also a great achievement in motion picture realm.
 Cecil Hepworth in Frog costume
Alice in Wonderland 1903 was filmed in a 8-room house which was turned into the Studio of Cecil's located in Walton-on-Thames, England, UK. The Mad Hatter tea party was set on the back garden of the house. Because of the non-existence of prop store, most of the stuff in this fantasy movie was borrowed from the houses down the street and the local landladies. The costumes were bought from second-hand costume store.
The running time, unfortunately, runs only about 8 minutes, but if you have never known what Alice in Wonderland is all about, it's a 100% guarantee the viewing would be a gaping time for you. Why? Because the filmmakers assumed that by that time people were already familiar with Alice's story. However there are still 5 frames that tell the outline of the story as you can see 2 of them on film still 2 and 3 above. Besides I'm sure some of you knew Alice from other more modern version. I, myself, knew Alice for the first time from the Walt Disney version which was also Disney's 13th movie of their Animated Classics series, Alice in Wonderland (1951). What about you fellow moviegoers?
All the film stills you see in this page are coming from British Film Institute restored version. And up until this very day of review, that version is the best and the only copy in the world. Although you can get this movie from many sources in the internet. The director, Cecil M. Hepworth was also one of the people who founded the British Film Institute. For his 24th movie that he directed, Cecil also starred as the 'Frog' and he also cast his wife both as 'White Rabbit' and 'Queen Heart', Norman Whitten (long time Cecil's collaborator) as 'Mad Hatter' and 'Fish'. While Alice herself was played by Mayble Clark (or May Clark) who had joined Cecil's production house in 1900 and was originally had worked as general help-out girl with main task were making costume and making tea. There weren't any professional film actors at that time. Cecil was an acclaimed filmmaker who had directed around 85 movies throughout his career, but for Alice in Wonderland 1903, he was also the producer, cinematographer and screenwriter.
 The Mad Tea-Party
Alice in Wonderland is not just a classic silent film, but it's also historically significant and might highly amuse your curiosity in educational way especially for Alice's fans.
 Alice escapes from Queen's card soldiers
>The first lines of Alice's!: Alice in Wonderland (1915) and Alice in Wonderland (1933).
>Fantastic classic fantasy movies: Le voyage dans la lune (1902), The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy (1915) and The Lost World (1925).
© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com
Twitter: @movielogy
posted: Monday, 31 October 2011 06:11 am
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