ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Such is the cultural and economic clout of the Walt Disney empire that its own adaptation of any literary work tends to overwhelm all others in the public consciousness, and that surely holds true for their treatment of the works of Lewis Carroll. However, of late there seems to be a growing backlash movement toward a darker vision of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, mostly centered on a popular video game version (which also may be headed for the motion picture screen). While this is certainly a worthwhile version, that project is hardly the first to see ALICE in the guise of a horror story. Even before the Jefferson Airplane's psychedelic musical rendering, this BBC production gave us a WONDERLAND haunting enough to forever taint your consideration of Disney's cartoon.

Jonathan Miller was a member of Britain's famed Beyond the Fringe comedy troupe (which inspired Monty Python), a television producer/director, and an ALICE fan who hated the Disney version. He'd always wanted to produce his own anti-Disney version, and was finally coerced to get on with it, at least in television format. The BBC responded to his proposal enthusiastically, increasing his budget to shoot on film. But the genesis and shooting of the film is covered at length both in the extensive liner notes and in Miller's genial commentrak.

Rather than putting forth his WONDERLAND in fantastic sets, Miller instead stages the action in ancient landmark gardens, houses and halls of the English countryside, making them fantastic through his deep focus lens. Any version of ALICE now demands famous guest stars in the cast, and Miller bows to that requirement, but refused to disguise them in any sort of outlandish costumes or extreme makeup, letting the performances sell the characters. John Gielgud provides an energetic Mock Turtle, Peter Sellers brings into the spotlight the usually minor King of Hearts, and Peter Cook may be the most gibberingly mad Mad Hatter ever. In contrast, Michael Gough's March Hare seems subdued under thorazine. And yes, the sharp eyed can spot Eric Idle in the deck of cards.

While Disney replaced much of Carroll's manic wordplay and aggressive riddles in logic with visual poetry and sight gags, Miller preserves much of the original dialogue verbatim, except for a few instances in which the actors contribute some perfectly Carrollian ad libs.

At the center of the film is Anne-Marie Mallik as Alice, giving a stunningly spooky performance. She stalks through Wonderland like a somnambulist, staring off into space, and carrying on whispered conversations with her alter ego, the Cheshire Cat. She only wakens to be pointedly rude to the other characters, who often seem to be half-asleep as well. As often as not her dialogue is not spoken aloud, but somehow projected telepathically, not that her company takes any notice. Glaring glumly from beneath a great shock of unruly hair, she's a haunting, sexy, and vaguely threatening figure. In period dress, and surrounded by antiquities, the characters seem to be ghosts of another age escaped from a spirit asylum. With its subtly nightmarish atmosphere and droning Ravi Shankar soundtrack, Miller's surreal ALICE recalls CARNIVAL OF SOULS or Carl Dreyer's VAMPYR more than the fairy story it's so often played as.

Not content to give Miller's film a worthy, crystalline resurrection, the folks at Home Vision have seen fit to include on the disc a version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND from much deeper in the vaults. In fact, it's the very first known film version, shot in Britain in 1903. Director Cecil Hupworth, assuming the viewer to be familiar with the story, presents several standout scenes from the novel in tableau form, condensing the tale in just eight minutes (an epic in those days). The lone surviving print is as battered as you'd expect for a nitrate film over 100 years old, but is watchable, and contains some fine special effects. Film historian Simon Brown accompanies the film with an informative (but unfortunately non-removable) commentrak.