Although last night's Academy Awards ceremony probably accounts for this weekend's Big Deal in Movies, I know many of you went to see the most recent cinematic take on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, as imagined by Tim Burton, which opened on Friday. However, many others have tried to bring Alice and her adventures in Wonderland to film since the very beginnings of the medium. A cursory search turns up more than a dozen attempts, the first of which was made in 1903 - 37 years after the book's release and just 5 years after Lewis Carroll's death in 1898.
This 1903 silent film, directed in England by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, was the longest film ever made at the time, running almost 12 minutes (only 8 of which have survived). Hepworth was insistent about staying as faithful as possible to the book's original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. The cast included his wife as the White Rabbit and Red Queen, his secretary as Alice, and the family dog, Blair. The dog went on to star in 1905's Rescued by Rover.
The British Film Institute has made the surviving 8 minutes of the movie available online.
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