Australian Cinema Glass Slide

Today we take a look at something that I didn't think I'd ever see, let alone see again!  This is a glass slide used in movie theaters (or cinemas as our friends down under would say) to advertise upcoming films.  The fact that this has survived almost 70 years in this pristine condition, and loose no less (no holder or cardboard sleeve) is amazing.  I much prefer this one to the one made for the American release.

Everybody's Weekly from July 21st, 1951

This comes in courtesy of my friend Charlie Lovett, Carrollian extraordinaire.  A British publication from the original release, Everybody's, dated July 21, 1951, a mere 5 days before the world premiere in London, priced at 4d (4 pence in 1951 is about 65 cents today).  Let's take a look, shall we?

Everybody's was a weekly tabloid-sized news magazine or paper that was published under various names from 1913-1959.  By the time this particular issue was released, it was being published as simply Everybody's.  Typical tabloid fare for the time, with lots of current events and celebrity stories, original fiction, sports, and of course movies.  That's where we come in.

This particular issue contains a three-page illustrated article on the soon-to-be released Disney's Alice in Wonderland.  As was common at the time in the UK, the movie is referred to as "Alice in Disneyland,"  presumably because of the issue taken with the Disney-fication of such a classic English story.  But I digress.  The article is constructed in much the same way as all of these glorified press releases of the day were constructed, as a series of standard stills from the film with captions describing the action, with some small commentary by the author.  This publication, as with many others from the UK at the time, have this strange black, white, and orange color scheme.  I'm sure there must be a reason for it, but I do not know it.

This article is not only not critical of the Disney adaptation, but practically doesn't mention it all.  The majority of piece expounds on the idiosyncrasies of Lewis Carroll, and hardly mentions the film except to say that the author thinks Carroll would have approved.  A grand total of 4 sentences of the 19 total are devoted to 'the film', one of which isn't really a sentence (this author is the king of the run-on sentence and sentence fragment).  One wonders if the author, Jonathan Routh, even saw it.