Alice in Wonderland (1985)

Awesome Movie

A Brilliant Conflict

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

This is a great film-I watched the film as a child, and I actually played it for my kids tonight, they loved the songs, and I fell in love with the movie all over again! As I watched I thought about being a child and remembered all the actors that performed during the movie with a VERY small number of them STILL ALIVE.It is very hard for me to watch much TV, with reality shows, and not much family shows that I grew up on. I loved the cast, my husband even forgot about all the stars that filmed the movie, and was excited to see it.It would be great if today there could be an all-star cast for a TV movie just like this, but I doubt egos could coexist long enough for fans to have that chance. Great movie, great memories!

I remember seeing this version of Alice in Wonderland as quite a young child (around six) and thought that it was fantastic. Having passed the 20 mark, I decided to look at it again, and I regret doing so. Not that it tarnished any sentimental childhood memories; I honestly felt that I wasted my time. Aside from perhaps some cheap direct-to-video animated versions, this probably ranks as the worst adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" I have ever seen. It comes across like some blind attempt at creating a latter-day "Wizard of Oz" or "Mary Poppins", and it completely fails.It at least annoys me that they didn't get a British Alice, but some cutesy American girl. Even Walt Disney, king of Americanisation, understood that Alice should be portrayed by a British actress. A contrived attempt at depicting Alice's nationality comes from a single framed picture of Queen Victoria hanging up on the wall in her house at the beginning.In any case, the story progresses in the traditional manner: a girl named Alice follows a white rabbit down a mysterious hole and into a strange fantasyland home to the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts and other funnies. "Through the Looking Glass" is also featured, linked to the Wonderland sections by an encounter with the Jabberwock. With practically all the characters invented by Carroll appearing, many of them often ignored by other filmmakers, you might be mistaken for thinking that, despite an American Alice, this adaptation is pretty faithful. This is hardly the case, however, as the tone of the original is alarmingly distorted.Anybody who is familiar with Lewis Carroll's original books will remember "Alice in Wonderland" being anarchic, rarely sentimental in the traditional sense and above all means not didactic. Equally, the best adaptations, from the 1966 BBC film to theDisney classic, don't necessarily follow the original narrative completely; they instead re-interpret the material but stay true to the overall tone to achieve their own filmic equivalent. This version of "Alice in Wonderland", however, comes across more as a wannabe "Wizard of Oz" intent, and tones down the original's anarchy into a moralising story about Alice growing up so that she can have tea with the grown-ups. The characters, many of them sadly played by a good number of normally talented actors and actresses, will suddenly jump from acting somewhat akin to the grotesque verse-reciting loonies of Carroll into behaving like creations bent on teaching how Alice can mature. Moreover, they usually do so through horrible songs. The use of the Jabberwock as a personification of Alice's childhood fears is equally as stupid, as is the constant use of artificial thrill moments and cheesy science-fiction sound effects. In fact, the production values on the whole are pretty dire. The sets seem lifeless and go overboard on fake plants. Most of the costumes look like they were hired from a fancy-dress shop, and, some of them look like they were made by six-year olds. For example, the Jabberwock looks like he's made of latex, and the oysters from "The Walrus and the Carpenter" look like people who got stuck in beach party props.I understand that there are thousands of Americans out there who adore this version on the grounds of nostalgia, and by no means am I trying to wreck their childhood memories by trashing this film. However, as far as everyone else is concerned, I'd say that it's best worth avoiding. From every point of view, it's well and truly a bad, tacky, dated piece of fluff.

I LOVE the books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and it's sequel Through the Looking Glass. I've read each one inside and out and have even studied The Annotated Alice which has notes in the margins so one could get a sense of the mayhem which isn't really mayhem once you understand where Lewis Carrol is coming from. For the die hard fan, one should check out the almost forgotten movie, Dreamchild. I say almost because, hey, I didn't forget it.1985 saw the production of a big musical production of Alice in Wonderland, based off of both books, complete with acclaimed director Irwin Allen who was known for disaster movies. Poseidon Adventure being one of his most famous.Along with a big name director came a big name cast that included Carol Channing, Imogene Coca, Ringo Starr, Sammy Davis Jr., Shelley Winters, John Stamos, Harvey Korman, and man this list could go on and on.The TV Musical spanned two nights on CBS and was a HIT. Well, it was to me, heheh. I don't know the real stats.Newcome Natalie Gregory played Alice and went on later to play Jenny in Disney's Oliver and Company. Like in that movie, she doesn't do her own singing here either.Once in Wonderland, Alice meets the familiar faces and the casting goes from genius to insane.A stand out would have to be Carol Channing as The White Queen who really makes this character her own. And she turns into a creepy lamb.Shelley Winters in the small part of The Dodo Bird seems very wasted as they do nothing with her and she's a huge name. Come on, she's Shelley Winters, not someone with a small name. Even John Stamos had more screen time than her.Martha Raye as The Duchess, Steve Lawrence as Tweedle Dumb and Eydie Gormé as Tweedle Dee look like they've been doing these parts of years now. It came so natural to them.Pat Morita plays a horse.Natalie Gregory really holds her own next to all these veterans.The music is very energetic and some of the songs contain lyrics from Lewis Carrol's text.That's one thing I LOVE about this production. A lot of Carrol's dialogue is contained which is what prompted me me to read the original books when I first saw this as a kid in the 80s. It was the first book I read. It's still my favorite.If you want an old fashioned, fun, family musical, go check this out, and watch it like how Mark and I watch Bette Midler in Gypsy. Turn off all of the lights, sit in your living room as if you're in a theater and watch it and behave like how you would in a theater. Give yourself a 15 minute intermission even between acts. It's an experience let me to tell ya.Go to My Movie Page:http://neonboy619.blogspot.com

I have seen it myself when I was really little. I am probably among a very select few who have seen it at least 60 times!! After having experienced college, and heard about all of the drug references in here, and especially after seeing the cast to see who acted in this presentation (Sammy Davis Jr, Sherman Hemsley, Steve and Edie, etc...) I SO would like to see this again! I will probably spend 4 hours laughing my ass off, which will likely continue for the next 8...I can't even believe I was fortunately to find something about this after doing a google search. then again, this was after some 30 pages of google matches that came up almost as dry as a martini. I hope it will be on CBS again soon. I think the last time I saw it on TV was back in 1995, the first half...