Alice in Wonderland

The first-ever film ver­sion of Lewis Carroll’s tale has recently been restored by the BFI National Archive from severely dam­aged mate­ri­als. Made just 37 years after Lewis Car­roll wrote his novel and eight years after the birth of cin­ema, the adap­ta­tion was directed by Cecil Hep­worth and Percy Stow, and was based on Sir John Tenniel’s orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions. In an act that was to echo more than 100 years later, Hep­worth cast his wife as the Red Queen, and he him­self appears as the Frog Foot­man. Even the Cheshire cat is played by a fam­ily pet.

With a run­ning time of just 12 min­utes (8 of which sur­vive), Alice in Won­der­land was the longest film pro­duced in Eng­land at that time. Film archivists have been able to restore the film’s orig­i­nal colours for the first time in over 100 years.

Find out more at: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/974410/