Alice in Wonderland '51

Cast: Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Sterling Hollaway, Jerry Colana and Verna Felton.

Director: Wilfred Jackson

Release Date: 1951

Genre: Disney/animation

Running Time: 1hr 15 minutes

Rating: U

Format: Blu-Ray

Synopsis:

Alice (Kathryn Beaumont) is a young girl who finds poems and learning literature rather boring. She loves stories with pictures and loves diving into her imagination. One day, whilst listening to her sister read some poetry, she spots a large white rabbit, dressed in a jacket, carrying a pocket watch. She follows him through the forest and down a very deep dark hole, that leads her to her biggest adventure yet!

This is Walt Disney's beautiful animated film adaption of Lewis Carroll's best selling book "Alice in Wonderland", can you believe this was only Walt Disney's 15th film at the time? This is definitely a classic and one your kids definitely aren't gonna want to miss! As always Disney has produced a stunning piece of animation. I think there's something very magical about a director if they can adapt a book into a piece of animation and make it very enjoyable. Disney actually took snippets from "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice through the looking glass" to create this unique story. I love that Disney was able to capture so many wonderful characters.

Wilfred Jackson also directed hit Disney films "Cinderella" and "Dumbo" too. At the time this was made, I'd definitely say this is the most stunning one. Kathryn Beaumont is definitely the star of the show, as the voice of Alice, Beaumont was also the voice of Wendy in Disney's hit film "Peter Pan" which went into production two years after the release of this film. I love the relationship she has with each character through out this film, each character helps to tell the story a little bit more each time, until finally she's face to face with the Red Queen who is absolutely terrifying. She's the ultimate bad guy. Verna Felton is absolutely fantastic as the voice of the Red Queen, her characterization is brilliant, you'll certainly love to hate her!

The animation is absolutely stunning, it's hard to believe this was actually made in 1951, I really love the use of colours,  I love how much detail there is in each and every scene, It really stands out on a Blu-Ray copy too. Alice's dress in particular really stands out from the standard DVD copy, on Blu-Ray, it's a gorgeous vibrant blue. I love the ideas that went into this movie, bread butterfly's, rocking horse fly's, I love how the flowers all have individual characters, some nice, some not so nice. Caterpillars and Dogapillars, it's brilliant. I love that Disney made up some characters too, for example the doorknob, who did not appear in the original books.

This movie is beautifully shot and you can clearly see that a lot of work went into it, it reportedly took 5 years to complete, It's not surprise when you can see how gorgeous it looks and the huge amount of detail that went into each and every scene to make it perfect. For a Disney film, it certainly has a dark side, which is much more rare these days with the likes of "Tangled" and "Frozen" being feel good films. I really appreciate how they were able to make the story dark, but not too dark, we are still able to see light at the end of the tunnel! It's hard to believe that when this was originally released it flopped at the box office, in recent years it's become a real cult classic and is a firm favourite among big Disney fans.

Of course it wouldn't be a Disney film without a brilliant score, Bill Hilliard got hold of this movie and produced a beautiful score for it, with popular songs like "The Unbrthday song" and "Painting the Roses Red" he really did do a fantastic job with the score, it's imaginative, magical and warm and explains the story perfectly. Beaumont proves she has a wonderful singing voice too as Alice. You'll find yourself getting emotional with the beautiful song "Very good advice" you'll find yourself feeling pretty sorry for Alice, I love that the film takes a sharp turn and we're introduced to the Queen of Hearts, through a secret tunnel. The film ends fantastically.

Creative, imaginative and magical! Perfect for those that want to get lost into a magical world!

5/5 stars