Lou Bunin's Alice in Wonderland

In light of the upcoming Tim Burton film, here is a clip of puppeteer and director Lou Bunin's 1949 Alice in Wonderland, a predominantly stop-motion film that starred Carol Marsh as a live-action Alice. Unfortunately, a lawsuit from Walt Disney prevented it from being widely released in the United States, so it would not compete with their own forthcoming 1951 version.



It is interesting how Disney has been monopolizing the Alice brand, considering how Burton's version is presumably a take-off of the 1951 animated film (Disney being the movie house behind the new Alice in Wonderland and also in light of the news that Burton is adapting a film off of Maleficent, a character exclusive to Disney).

Lou Bunin's version is worth watching not just to feel rebellious, but as a film in itself. With an adult Alice, this contrasts well with the forthcoming movie, and the stop motion here is livelier than Jan Švankmajer's Alice. There are so many translations of Lewis Carroll's books to the screen, and each of them say something about Alice as well as the time and society they come from.