Disney Alice in Wonderland

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ALICE IN WONDERLAND

This sub-project is part of the larger Classic Disney Project. Please visit the main project page for details on the goals and objectives of this project.

CAST

• Kathryn Beaumont - Alice (living) (c)
• Verna Felton - Queen of Hearts (c)
• Francis "Dink" Trout - King of Hearts
• Bill Thompson - White Rabbit and The Dodo (c)
• Sterling Holloway - Cheshire Cat (c)
• Ed Wynn - Mad Hatter (c)
• Jerry Colonna - March Hare
• Jimmy MacDonald - Dormouse
• Richard Haydn - Caterpillar
• J. Pat O'Malley - The Walrus & The Carpenter, Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum, The Curious Oysters (c)
• Larry Grey - Bill the Lizard (c)
• Joseph Kearns - The Doorknob (c)
• Heather Angel - Alice's sister Ada (c)
• Queenie Leonard - Mother Bird, Snooty Flower (c)
• Doris Lloyd - The Rose

Uncredited Voices

• Norma Zimmer - White Rose (c)
• Lucille Bliss - Sunflower, Tulips, Daisy (c)
• Tommy Luske - Young Pansy (c)
• Marni Nixon - Singing Flowers (c)
• Clarence Nash - Dinah the Kitten (c)
• Pinto Colvig - Flamingo (c)
• Ken Beaumont - Card Painter (c)
• Don Barclay - Card Painter (c)
• The Mellomen - Singing Card Painters
  • Thurl Ravenscroft (c)
  • Bill Lee (c)
  • Bob Hamlin
  • Max Smith

Note: Although Katheryn Beumont (Alice) is still living, her family tree can be found by clicking on the link to her father, Ken Beumont (above), as he also voiced a small part in the film.

Film Facts

Plot: Alice is a daydreaming young girl who finds learning poems and listening to literature boring. She prefers stories with pictures and to live inside her own imagination. One day, she spots a white rabbit dressed in a jacket and carrying a large pocket watch. He scurries off, saying he's late, for a very important date. She follows him through the forest, and when he then disappears down a rabbit hole, she follows. What follows is a series of misadventures in the madcap world of Wonderland with all of its whimsical characters, including the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar, the March Hare, and the Cheshire Cat, and the evil Queen of Hearts with her army of playing card soldiers.

- Disney based this film on the Alice books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, by English children's author Lewis Carroll.

- Alice in Wonderland was the Walt Disney's 13th full-length animated feature. Alice in Wonderland premiered at the Leicester Square Theatre in London on 26 Jul 1951, and in New York City on 28 Jul 1951.

- In 1923, when Walt Disney was still a 21-year-old aspiring filmmaker working at the failing Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, his final project was a ten-minute silent film entitled Alice's Wonderland. This led to a series of "Alice Comedies" featuring a live action little girl named Alice (originally played by Virginia Davis) and an animated cat named Julius who have adventures in an animated landscape. The series ran from 1924 to 1927. It was this series that allowed Disney, along with his older brother Roy O. Davis to form the Disney Brothers Studios, which later became Walt Disney Productions.

- In 1933, Disney first considered making a feature-length animated-and-live-action version of Alice starring Mary Pickford. However, these plans were eventually scrapped in favor of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In 1938, Disney bought the film rights to Alice in Wonderland, but with the economic devastation of World War II and the production demands of Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi, he soon shelved production on the project. After the War ended, Disney revived Alice in Wonderland and hired British author Aldous Huxley to write the script; but Disney thought Huxley's version was too literal an adaptation of Carroll's book and the project was again shelved. Disney next considered making a hybrid live-action-and-animated version of Alice in Wonderland that would star Ginger Rogers. However, he eventually determined that he could only do justice to the book by producing an all-animated feature and, in 1946, work finally began on the animated Disney classic we know today.

- The film was considered a disappointment on its initial release, leading to Walt Disney showing it on television as one of the first episodes of his TV series Disneyland. The film proved to be very successful on television. It was eventually re-released in theaters which proved to be massively successful. The film became even more successful through merchandising and subsequent home video releases.

- Alice in Wonderland was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, but lost to An American in Paris.