When Paramount previewed the film in 1933, the original running time was 90 minutes. By the time it was shown to the press, it was truncated to 77 minutes. Many reviews, including the savage one in Variety, made a point of how long it seemed at an hour-and-a-quarter. Though being released at this shorter time, it is often mistakenly reported that Universal Pictures edited it when it bought the television rights in the late 1950s.[2] Universal released the film on DVD on March 2, 2010, as the first home video release.
It is the only major live-action Hollywood theatrical production to adapt the original Alice stories. The next major live-action Hollywood production to do so is a two-part adaptation for television in 1985, and the second major live-action Hollywood production for movie theaters to use the title Alice in Wonderland was made by Tim Burton for Disney in 2010 as a sequel to the original story.
Plot
Alice (Charlotte Henry) and Dinah live peacefully in their home, until chasing a White Rabbit into a hole. Falling in, Alice is transported to various doors. She drinks a bottle that reads "Drink Me, Not Poison", which makes her grow big. Her tears flood the room while weeping. She eats a cookie and turns tiny. Swimming in her tears, she meets a couple of odd men named Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. She encounters a tea party, where the Mad Hatter and March Hare live. She meets the Cheshire Cat, then she meets Humpty Dumpty, who tells her what an unbirthday is. She leaves and meets a caterpillar and changes size again. Alice returns to her normal size and runs away from the caterpillar and meets the Queen of Hearts. They play croquet by grabbing a flamingo by the neck. Alice is welcomed to a castle, realizing that she is Queen or Princess of the land. The people of Wonderland start to go crazy and gang up on Alice by running towards her, Then Alice gets choked by the Queen, wakes up in her room, and lives happily ever after.
Its status as a box office bomb cast doubt on whether a live-action fantasy with strange-looking characters could be successfully presented on the screen, until MGM's The Wizard of Oz (1939).[citation needed] It was banned in China under a category of "superstitious films" for its "strangeness" and unscientific elements.[3]
Variety magazine said that the timeless classic book is too surrealistic and adult-oriented to have a good film adaptation. It said the film is "vividly realized" with genuine humor and a satisfying literary treatment, and the cast is "a stunning aggregation of screen names", but the experience is a non-sequitur "volume of separate four-line gags".[4]
