Alice in Wonderland Review

Alice in Wonderland is a 1903 silent short film directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Mae Clark. It is such a good first adaptation of the novel.

Yes, this is the very first cinematic adaptation of ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and it truly is stupendous. It has its technical problems as the restoration is not great and it shows its age plus the score that they added was not good as classical music does not fit the material at all, but other than that the film features groundbreaking, terrific special effects with the shrinking/enlargement being particularly striking for its period.

I disliked that they included the woman with the baby segment as that is my least favorite from the book, but all of the others are excellent from the White Rabbit to the shrinking which is the highlight to the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat. I also really liked the Queen of Hearts and that card parade was so well filmed. It lasts for just about 9 minutes, but is actually not rushed and it works pretty well as a short adaptation of the book.

Alice in Wonderland holds up remarkably well with striking special effects and some stupendous scenes.