Alice In Wonderland (1933)

Lewis Carroll's ALICE IN WONDERLAND has seen too many incarnations in both film and television to keep track of. This disagreeable, all star Paramount film version is charmless and dull, surprising since the screenplay was co-written by that master of verbal wit Joseph L. Mankiewicz (ALL ABOUT EVE). It helps if the actress playing Alice is appealing but Charlotte Henry makes for a bland, uninteresting Alice. It might have helped if it had been filmed in Technicolor but that didn't come along until two years later. The film lacks magic and most of the famous names in the cast are heavily disguised so that all we hear is their voice. For all we know, they're not even inside their costumes. They include W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle, Gary Cooper as the White Knight and Richard Arlen as the Cheshire Cat. The score is an early effort by Oscar winner Dimitri Tiomkin (HIGH NOON). Directed by Norman Z. McLeod. The animated The Walrus And The Carpenter segment is well done, however. Also with Edna May Oliver as the Red Queen, Charles Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton, May Robson, Alison Skipworth, Jack Oakie and Mae Marsh.