In 2007, Unsuk Chin’s opera, Alice in Wonderland, was released on DVD. I was so excited I put every available version of Alice in Wonderland onto our netflix queue and then promptly forgot I’d done it. A few weeks ago, they started showing up in the mail. As obsessions go, this was a pretty minor one, but it’s now it’s oh-so-painfully hip in light of Tim Burton’s forthcoming adaptation, which stars Johnny Depp as Alice.

Yes, I know Depp isn’t playing Alice, but Tim Burton devotees seem to have no sense of humor whatsoever and it’s amusing to watch them work themselves into a lather over comments like that. I like Tim Burton. I think he’s squandered more talent on movies like that Planet of the Apes remake than most people possess. But I digress…

There have been lots of adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s work, but Disney’s 1951 cartoon might still be the standard bearer. We rewatched it recently and marveled at how well it’s aged.

French New Wave cinema was a clear influence on the 1966 production of an episode of a BBC series called “The Wednesday Play.” The movie stars, among others, Sir John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave & Peter Sellers. Ravi Shankar composed the soundtrack.

The movie is simultaneously exceptionally dull and hypnotically engrossing.

Alice communicates almost entirely in voiceover (even her dialogue) and never makes eye contact with the other characters. I don’t know if this is a pedantic representation of Carroll’s biting commentary on Victorian childhood or if the kid just couldn’t act so the director worked around it. Whatever the reason, it works well. I found the tea party scene on youtube, it shows much better than I can tell:

As if the movie doesn’t feel enough like a Calvin Klein Obsession commercial put through the Monty Python blender, Eric Idle, not yet famous enough to even warrant a credit, zooms past in an early scene as a participant in the caucus race.

Just for fun, here’s some Obsession ads from the 80s:

I was going to post the great SNL parody, Compulsion, but I can’t find it online.

Next up: The 1985 made-for-tv Alice in Wonderland that’s a 3 1/2 hour musical starring Roddy McDowall, Scott Baio, Sherman Hemsley, Telly Savalas, Ringo Starr, Imogene Coca, Red Buttons, Sid Caesar, Sally Struthers, John Stamos, Ernest Borgnine, Beau and Lloyd Bridges, Carol Channing, Merv Griffin, and Sammy Davis, Jr, among others. Seriously.