Alice In Wonderland [1966]

This is the sort of classic that rarely appears on DVD/home video – get it while you can!

If you’re interested in an alternative and challenging vision of Carroll’s classic, see also Jan Svankmajer’s animated ‘Alice’, for superb surreality and a more gothic flavour.


Mind boggling & enchanting film   March 10, 2004
11 out of 16 found this review helpful

I borrowed this one from the local library, and, being quite a fantasy story fan, not to mention seeing previous reviews of this film, I was quite looking forward to it.

I thought the actor (I just call both actresses and actors, actors!) playing the lead role as Alice was really good, as well as the actors who appear as humans instead of animals (as is the case in the original story of 'Alice In Wonderland, and most of it's many screen adaptations). At first I was unsure about this & thought maybe it would be more accurate to have actors dressed as doormice, cheshire cats, etc but the fact that these characters appear as humans in this film does actually add to the surreal nature of the story.

I like the intellectualism of the film which somehow could've only surfaced on something made for BBC television, and something which is probably absent on the more family musical type based Warner Bros/Disney based versions of the story. The film also does well to re-capture the complex, hard-to-get-your-head around plot of the book, and it'll probably take me several views to totally 'get' the story.

So, 'yep - four stars material for me'. Very good to watch if you like your weird, mind-stretching/deep undertone movies, and the musical contribution of Ravi Shankar rounds things off well. If there is one drawback of the film it's that it would've been much better to have been in colour, so as to add to that 'psychedelic' effect. After all, the film was released in 1966 (very close to the peak of the 60's psychedelia explosion)!


40 years on, still modern   July 12, 2005
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

The comment I want to make is on just how modern this version of Alice in Wonderland appears some 40 years later. Perhaps it's the timeless effect of the black and white, but it's quite easy to imagine this being made today, using guest stars like Vic Reeves and David Walliams in place of stars Peter Cooke and Leo McKern.
The drug fuelled aspect is alluded to often - Alice looks 'out of it' more than once, clearly by design, and the sense of being inside an LSD trip is conveyed subtly but clearly. Again, this allows the play to retain a modernity - if Miller (or Carroll) had shown any actual use of drugs, this work would have been censored and probably banned - but by using Carroll's device of bottles and cakes marked 'eat me' and 'drink me' he pretty much gets away with making you feel like you just spent an endless summer day tripped out at woodstock without risking any censorship.
Quite an experience.

Very connected to the psychedelic movement that was as it's height then too - I half expected John Lennon to appear, but sadly he didn't. Beatles fans will recognise the warped victoriana throughout the play.


TRIPPY ALICE IN WONDERLAND - 60's version!   July 7, 2003
Jn Johansson (Sweden)
9 out of 11 found this review helpful

At last this CLASSIC BBC TV-film from 1966 is available to a wider audience. SUPERBLY Directed by Jonathan Miller, giving it a "Pre-'67 Psych" feel, when looking on it now, and with an armada of SUBLIME Brit actors, i.e. Sir John Gielgud, Leo McKern, Peter Sellers etc etc AND Peter Cook as the Mad Hatter is nothing short of BRILLIANT! + Anne-Marie Mallik is superb as Alice. Jonathan M. version captures the dreamlike feel of Lewis Carroll's fantasy, with his MAGIC WAND, which makes it a movie experience, extraordinare. Ravi Shankar's(!) specially composed music is highly original and fits perfectly! INVEST!!