I want to thank August Imholtz of the Lewis Carroll Society for alerting me to the existence of this magazine. This issue of Punch contains a very rare thing - a positive review of Disney's Alice in Wonderland from England!
The reviewer makes many of the same points that I've believed for a very long time. That you cannot view the Disney Alice in terms of a strict interpretation of the books, and that while it is certainly not high cinema, it has many very enjoyable and successful moments. The Alice books, while wonderful and enchanting, cannot be filmed as written, it simply is not possible. Any film that has attempted that is unwatchable.
I have a great deal of respect for this reviewer, he took a very unpopular position on the film, and made many good points. Three cheers for Richard Mallett.
The reviewer makes many of the same points that I've believed for a very long time. That you cannot view the Disney Alice in terms of a strict interpretation of the books, and that while it is certainly not high cinema, it has many very enjoyable and successful moments. The Alice books, while wonderful and enchanting, cannot be filmed as written, it simply is not possible. Any film that has attempted that is unwatchable.
I have a great deal of respect for this reviewer, he took a very unpopular position on the film, and made many good points. Three cheers for Richard Mallett.
4 comments:
You and August are to be applauded for giving space to Richard Mallet's review (and Sherriff's illustration) of Alice. I think I quoted Mallet in my book The Disney Studio Story and, like you, have always admired a British critic for giving Disney a thumbs up at a time when most of the others were denouncing him as the American despoiler of Wonderland.
I would love to read that review. I have been a fan of Disney's Alice and I also love Carroll's books. I am writing my thesis about something related to Alice, do you know how I could find that issue of Punch?
@Emily - as it is an English magazine it might be difficult to find here in the US. Best bet is to try a large metropolitan library. You can always look online for vintage magazine dealers, both in the US and the UK, to see if they have a copy of this issue. And if worse comes to worse, I could always provide you with scans of the relevant pages.
But you only have to enlarge the image on the blog and you can read it!!!
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