Sunday News September 9, 1951

This is truly spectacular.  This is a copy of the Sunday News, the Sunday supplement of the New York Daily News from September 9, 1951.  That in and of itself is not that spectacular, even though it does have a very nice cover featuring Anne Francis of Forbidden Planet and Honey West fame.

No, the spectacular part is on the very next page, the inside front cover to be exact, which sports - in glorious full-color rotogravure - an amazing photo of Kathryn Beaumont speaking animatedly to her Wonderland friends in doll form.  I do find it amusing that whoever wrote the caption got the two rabbits mixed up.

These dolls have appeared before in several black and white photos, and while it is never clear what exactly they are, it now seems UN-likely that they are Lars of Italy (thanks to the keen eye of uber collector Mel Birkrant).  They could be custom made just for the studio or even by the studio, but regardless, this is just an amazing image.  And a rare full color image from the time.

65th Anniversary of Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland's World Premiere in London

While the official release date may be July 28th, 1951, Walt Disney's animated classic Alice in Wonderland had its world premiere in London on July 26th, at the Leicester Square theater.  Kathryn Beaumont and Walt Disney were in attendance, and I'm sure a grand time was had by all.  Let's hear it for 65 wonderful years!

Actor / Character Comparison Still - Alice and Kathryn Beaumont - Riding the Bird in the Caucus Race

The last of the comparison photos, this time Alice again!  Poor Kathy was so tormented by the animators during the live action reference filming.

Where was OSHA back then?

Actor / Character Comparison Still - Alice and Kathryn Beaumont - Sliding Down the Table Leg

This particular image was very popular during the months preceding the release of Alice in 1951, it was featured in several magazine articles promoting Disney's latest all-cartoon film!

I must say I do love images of the various tortures they put Kathy through during her live-action reference.

Actor / Character Comparison Still - Alice and Kathryn Beaumont

A long time ago I found a still that had lots of little tiny images of the various actors with their animated counterparts.  Recently I came across the full size still for several of those images, so let's have a series!

First up is, of course, Alice!

This still was used a lot back in the day, and the image of Kathy was practically ubiquitous.  But nonetheless, a cool still.  The animated Alice appears to be from the Caterpillar sequence based on the leaves in the background.  Haven't had a chance to find the exact image in the film, perhaps later in my voluminous spare time.

Promotional Photo of Kathy Holding Kitten A-SPEC-132 - with LOTS of Mary Blair Art

Today the family and I are at the Walt Disney Family Museum visiting the Mary Blair exhibit.  Seems a perfect time for this post.

What a great photo.  Kathy at her cutest holding a little kitten.  And just look at that art!

It is a Mary Blair extravaganza behind her.  Oh to have even one of those.  Many of them I've seen cross the auction block in the past few years, how many can you recognize?

Live Action Reference Photo A-SPEC-10 - Alice Jumping

Next from the Key Book set is the photo of Kathy jumping.  My assumption is that this is from the sequence when Alice is entering the Queen's grounds for the first time through the maze, and hears the Card Painters and jumps up and down to see over the hedge.

I cannot match this to a specific frame of film (mostly because that whole sequence is dominated by the hedge) but as this is a SPEC still it may have been a press still image taken from a different angle, or it could be from another scene entirely.  I do know that this image is also very popular with Disney, both at the time of release and even to this day.

Live Action Reference Photo - Alice with the Card Guards

This next photo from the Key Book is a new one on me, a photo from a deleted sequence apparently. There is no scene in the final film where Alice is being marched away by two Card Guards.

The trial is Sequence 11.0 according to the animators draft, and Scene 1 is the cards flying through the air at the end of the Croquet scene.  The next 10 scenes were cut, and it is likely that this is from one of those scenes.

Live Action Reference Photo A-SPEC-? - Alice at the Bottom of the Rabbit Hole

Next up from the Key Book photos is this very fun image of Kathy hanging upside down as she reaches the end of her journey down the rabbit hole.

She must be wearing an early form of Gravity Mary Jane.  Notice the pair of hands holding the wall behind her, I'm guessing it was less than stable.

This particular image is frequently used by Disney even today.  My particular copy's negative number is very difficult to read, and is missing the numeric component due to the way the negative was centered when printed.

Live Action Reference Photo 1049-9 - The Mad Tea Party

This is a bit of a repost, but since I acquired this new copy of the photo from the Key Book with a different reference number and snipe intact I thought I'd share it again.

This is one of the earliest photos of Kathy as Alice.  According to the snipe this is a rehearsal for the Mad Tea Party sequence.  The reference number indicates that this is from October of 1949, nearly two full years prior to release.

And I must say that Kathy does indeed look very young :-)

Live Action Reference Photo 650-51 - Alice on the Sea of Tears

Next of the Key Book stills is this of Kathy standing on the Drink Me bottle while sailing the Sea of Tears - or a reasonable facsimile thereof.  This is very similar to the still originally posted here.

This one still has its original snipe on the back.

Looks like they may have reversed the scene either in the still or in the final animation.

Live Action Reference Photo 749-24 - Alice and the Caterpillar

Starting another batch of live action reference photos, all of which seem to have come out of a key book by the look of the punched holes.  First up is this great one of both Kathy and Richard Hayden as the Caterpillar!

I don't think I was aware that Richard Hayden performed the live action reference until I got this still with its snipe still intact on the reverse.

The Caterpillar sequence was among the first animated and the look of Alice in certain scenes is quite different from the rest of the film.

Even the colors of her dress vary slightly, with the collar tabs being a lighter shade of blue.

Courtroom Scene Rotoscope Layout Drawings

This just in from the far flung reaches of the Tulgey Wood, a set of rotoscope layout drawings of the courtroom scene.  There seems to be a lot of courtroom art out there, and I have my fair share of it.

What's neat about these is that they are a close match to the previous set of animation rotoscopes I posted earlier.

These are not meant to be animation drawings (I think) but layout drawings.

The 5 digit numbers written on the page correspond to the frame number on the live action footage shot for this scene.  You can see examples of this on the various scenes included on the supplemental of the newest DVD and Blu-Ray discs.

Framing/tracking boxes here also lend to the layout argument.

But, what is cool is that I do have a matched set, one from the animation drawing and one from this set of layout drawing, that both correspond to frame 05322.

You can see subtle differences, due I'm sure to the tracing style of whomever did the trace for the animation vs layout drawings.  But they both match very well with the final image.

I just love stuff like this :-)

Happy Birthday Kathy!

Today is Kathryn Beaumont's birthday!  Many happy returns of the day!

Love all the Mary Blair storyboards in the background on this.

Live Action Reference Photo A-SPEC-155 - The Mad Tea Party

Somehow I missed this one when I did the live action reference series a while back, this one is an OLD one, just look how young Kathy is!

Featuring Kathryn Beaumont, Jerry Colonna, and Ed Wynn.  Probably not a true live action reference, more likely a press photo during a recording session, but great to see all three together.

The Case of the Mysterious Artwork

Several years ago I was approached by a reader of the blog who had a very unusual piece of artwork.  He wrote the following:

"My father was a member of the press who interviewed Walt Disney several times from 1947 on and always managed to bring home little bits and pieces of Disney wonderfulness, particularly after I came into the picture in 1950.  Among them was this pencil drawing which we never had properly framed. It was just stored down in our basement and I would take it out and look at it from time to time. It seemed to be some kind of work in progress, but what it actually is, or was, or was supposed to be is still a mystery to me."

It certainly looked like a Disney-created piece, but I had never seen this image before.  Flash forward a few months later and this piece came up for sale, and I acquired it!  I still didn't know what it was, but I liked it.  It is done in a combination of pencil and pen & ink on tissue or vellum.

Then two weeks ago I received this Italian newsprint magazine (again with the Italians!) called La Domenica del Corriere.

On pages 10 and 11 there is an article and images from Disney's Alice, with some grabs from the film and a nice image of Kathy,

and just look at the images near the top in lavender!

Finally the mystery is solved!  It was art prepared for magazine articles about the film and probably specifically addressing the similarities to the Tenniel art.  I've still not come across this art in a US publication, but it must exist somewhere!

The only differences between the original art and this published version is the captions on the Mad Tea Party.  But other than that (and the fact that it was published in color, pretty common), it is indeed the art in question.  Cool.

Vintage Autographed Photo of Kathryn Beaumont 850-8032

This is something I have not seen very often, a vintage autographed photo of Kathryn Beaumont from her Alice in Wonderland days.  And what a great photo it is, possibly my favorite photo of her in her Alice costume.

This is a 4x5 photo, and I assume that this would have been sent to fans who wrote to the studio asking for Alice's autograph.  It is possible that it was done in person as Kathy did make many guest appearances during her promotional tour for the film, but odds are it was mailed.  The signature on this photo is nice too, although it has faded slightly over the years.  This photo is number 850-8032, meaning it was taken in August of 1950, almost a full year before the film was released.

TV Forecast Magazine - Week of December 30th, 1950

By now most of you faithful readers should be aware of the Christmas Day television broadcast of Walt Disney's One Hour in Wonderland, Disney's very first TV show. This edition of TV Forecast magazine (predating TV Guide by a couple of years), is from the week of Christmas 1950.

Inside is a one-page article with photos from One Hour in Wonderland, featuring Kathryn Beaumont, Edgar Bergen with Charlie McCarthy & Mortimer Snerd, Bobby Driscoll, and the Firehouse Five + Two.

The exceptionally brief article - practically a caption - says that NBC expects there to be more of these kinds of programs.  They were certainly correct!

Film d'Oggi from Italy - December 5th, 1951

Taking a break from David Hall for the Christmas season, we have here a very cool magazine from Italy called Film d'Oggi, one that I searched for high and low for many years before finally acquiring a copy.  Fantastic cover art of Alice dreaming dreams of Wonderland characters floating around on snowflakes.

Some of you might recognize the art on these snowflake folk, it was used as the basis for a series of pins released by DisneyStore.com a couple of years ago,

and the Walrus was also featured in an Advent pin set way back in 2002.

The interior is what you'd expect (although in Italian), a few nice color images from the film - the Alice in the Tulgey Wood is an unusual choice and not frequently seen.

Accompanying the color stills is an article about the making of the film, with some standard studio shots of various animator interacting with Kathryn Beaumont.

This Week Magazine - January 14th, 1951

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had a happy and safe holiday.  To start the new year off right I'm posting one of my all time favorite items, a copy of This Week Magazine with a full color photo of Kathy on the cover. 

This Week was one of several Sunday newspaper supplements of the day, that had lots of little fluffy articles on current events and such.  This particular copy came from the Detroit News.  The cover on this is great, featuring Kathy in her Alice garb meandering through the mockup of the Tulgey Wood on her way to the Mad Tea Party.

Inside is a very typical marketing piece on the upcoming film, titled Alice in Movie Land.  It sports a few more animation reference photos with side-by-side comparisons to the final film, although they do make a couple of mistakes.

I remember the first time I saw one of these supplements, it was at this giant used bookstore in Burbank called Book World (which is no longer there I believe), and it had a pretty amazing price tag on it too.  But time passed and I managed to find a copy that didn't cost me my rent money for the month.  I do think this is the largest full color image of Kathy in costume published domestically, and certainly the most striking.