Alice is a curious character in the Disney pantheon. She’s not a princess but has the popularity of one. She doesn’t have any magical powers, a plethora animal friends, or a particularly lovely singing voice. She was famous long before Walt Disney transformed her into an animated character. In western children’s fantasy literature, she is part of the iconic triad that includes Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and Wendy of Peter Pan. She’s a legacy portal fantasy and isekai (to borrow a Japanese anime/manga term) heroine that’s inspired hundreds of stories and spinoffs, especially when Alice’s books entered the public domain.
Without the influence of Walt Disney’s 1951 feature film, I speculate Alice would have remained a fixture in the entertainment zeitgeist. She would just have much less merchandise to her name and would be more revered akin to Beatrix Potter’s characters and C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series. What makes Alice a fascinatingly curious Disney character is her movie strongly parallels the source material by Lewis Carroll (the nom de plume of mathematician and author Charles Dodgson) with much creative license. This is particularly true with Alice’s trademark mien. The Walt Disney Studio artists didn’t create Alice’s blonde hair tied back with bow and her frock with a white pinafore, but they did refine it for the silver screen.
Other depictions of Disney characters are now regarded as the standard. Snow White is always imagined with her Technicolor blue and yellow gown, while Sleeping Beauty always wears her golden tiara paired with a pink or blue dress. The Little Mermaid is now forever a bright redhead with a green tail and Cinderella is never seen without her classic chignon and sparkly white-blue ballgown. Meanwhile Alice has remained close to her illustrative origins.
Alice by John Tenniel
Tenniel worked in the theater and often transposed dramatic scenes to paper. His work was noted to be very theatrical compared to other cartoonists. Thanks to his photographic memory, he was also a master of portraiture and caricature. Tenniel knew how to draw from real life thanks to his classical education at the Royal Academy of Arts based in London, but he included details he only saw in his imagination. I describe Tenniel’s work in that he had the ethos of high, fine art but has the muckrake details of the common sketch artist His influences are still seen today, but none more so than the original Alice in Wonderland.
He became Punch’s Principal Cartoonist circa 1864. Around that time Lewis Carroll was fiddling around with the draft for Alice in Wonderland and he drew his own conceptions of what Alice looked like. Apparently his renderings weren’t the best, so he sought the services of a professional artist. His eyes fell on Tenniel, because Carroll loved his caricatures.
When it came to their respective artistic mediums, Carroll and Tenniel were masters. Caroll knew how to spin a word and poetic verse with the same elegance as a mathematical formula, while Tenniel inked small details into his cartoons while maintaining a simplicity that didn’t overwhelm a viewer’s eyes. It was a match made in Wonderland!
There are scant remnants of the correspondence between Tenniel and Carroll during their collaboration on Alice. The remaining letters and diaries allude to an intense dialogue over the development of Carroll’s iconic characters. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has one of the few surviving illustrations showing the development of Alice. The image depicts a concept profile of Alice’s visage by Tenniel with notes from Carroll that read: “A little bit off eyebrow. Eyebrow & eyelid lighter. Eyelash – a little too long. Clear away a line on nose next to cheek. A little bit more light on end of nose.”
Despite being a literary master, Carroll didn’t bog down Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass with descriptions of his characters and their world. The books read more like an observation with curious pondering about the imaginary lands. Carroll was interested in world building, but not to the extent seen as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, and Ursula Le Guin.
He relied more on Alice’s situations and Tenniel’s illustrations to augment his world building. Tenniel was an experienced artist by the time he was hired to illustrate the Alice books. The Victoria and Albert Museum wrote: “…Tenniel invented his own characterisations, drawing from a vast range of sources, including fine art, natural history, heraldry, caricature and his previous work for Punch.” Carroll, however, was involved with the creation of the illustrations. He provided Tenniel with feedback about what to draw and where illustrations would be placed in the final print. When it comes to creating the characters iconic looks, however, writer and graphic novelist of Alice in Sunderland credits it all to Tenniel: “Carroll never describes the Mad Hatter: our image of him is pure Tenniel.”
It doesn’t appear Carroll micromanaged Tenniel, however, and he trusted the artist’s skills. The working relationship between the two legends is reminiscent of how modern comic book artists and writers work together. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are children’s books, but modern children’s illustration doesn’t work like the aforementioned described relationship. Unless an author doubles as the illustrator, they have little say in what is drawn for the book. Comic books, however, are written with dialogue and panel descriptions for the artist to manifest.
Arguably Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass could be viewed as some of the first modern graphic novels because of the collaboration between author and artist
Having written my own novels and studied Carroll’s personality, I hypothesize he was more concerned with how his words were being edited than being an overbearing presence for Tenniel. The illustrator was a professional, experienced artist who had a famous career long before he illustrated the Alice books. Carroll was aware of this so he left his collaborator to his own devices. (This is only speculation on my part based on my creative experience and knowledge of Carroll’s life.)
Alice’s portrayal is recognizable and simplistic: a frock with a pinafore and blonde hair tie back with a ribbon headband. Alice’s dress is traditionally blue but its color has changed to suit whatever publication she is in. When Walt Disney selected to bring the heroine to an animated feature, he and his team had an abundance of Tenniel’s work for inspiration not to mention numerous republishing of the book with reimagined depictions of the famous characters.
Mary Blair was tapped for creative and conceptual designs on Alice in Wonderland. Compared to Tenniel’s straightforward, detailed ink style, Blair is a modernistic almost minimalist artist who favors organic shape and bold color. They two couldn’t be more different, but Blair’s respect for Tenniel’s source material is more evident in her renderings of Alice. She kept the same iconic look, albeit minimalist. Blair’s blue, yellow, and white beribboned blur couldn’t be anyone by Alice. Blair’s Alice in Wonderland concepts are truer homages to Tenniel’s work than Salvador Dali’s surrealistic, brut version.
Blair and the Disney animation studio knew they were working with an truly recognizable heroine and if they changed too much, they’d face the slander of the 1950s versions of Internet trolls and hardcore Alice in Wonderland fanboys and girls.
Walt Disney was possessive about his work and he wanted to own Alice through and through. While the work was in the public domain, Disney wanted his Alice to be the only Alice. It’s similar to how the Walt Disney Company wants their films to be the only fairytale films and why those cheap knock-offs films follow as to the copyright borderline without getting sued. Speaking of lawsuits, there was another Alice in Wonderland film that premiered in 1949. It was directed by American puppeteer and stop-motion animator Lou Bunin. Walt sued to keep Bunin’s film from a wide US release. He didn’t win his case because the works are in the public domain, but Walt used his influence to hinder Bunin’s work.
Bunin’s Alice is reminiscent of Tenniel’s original concept, just like Disney’s. The Disney fairytales’ source materials are hundreds of years old compared to Carroll’s works that are only a little over a century (I realize Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid is a young fairytale but it’s in the same sea as older fairytales). There are countless depictions of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and the Little Mermaid because the source materials were based on oral traditions and didn’t have original illustrations. It allowed the Walt Disney Studios endless creative liberties to depict these famous characters, while Alice was already visually represented in the zeitgeist like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.
If Disney had changed Tenniel’s Alice too much, it would have ruffled more feathers than a croquet flamingo or a dodo. While Alice is beloved Disney character, we also revere her illustrious literary origins.
Whitney Grace is a pop culture historian and appraiser specializing in animation, comic books, puppetry, and videogames. She wrote 
I suppose Punch and MAD are comparable in that they were both illustrated magazines of humour and satire with a mascot who appeared on every single cover (Punch and Alfred E. Neuman, respectively). But Punch was a comparatively conservative publication, found in upper-class drawing rooms; whereas MAD, targeting the youth readership, had a decidedly anti-establishmentarian ethos. Queen Victoria loved Punch, while Richard Nixon would have found little to like about MAD.
Tenniel’s rendering of the dodo is based on a 17th-century painting by Roelant Savery that was presented to the British Museum in the mid-1700s by ornithologist George Edwards (and is sometimes misattributed to him). A copy of the painting hangs in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, along with another painting of the dodo by Jan Savery, Roelant’s nephew. Both of them were drawn from stuffed specimens rather than living birds, so that the dodo appears far fatter than it would have in life. Charles Dodgson and young Alice Liddell often visited the museum to view the dodo remains and other curiosities; no doubt he would have insisted that Tenniel create as accurate a likeness of the bird as possible. Had it not been written as a character in Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece, the dodo — a long-extinct bird endemic to a remote island — would be virtually unknown to the general public today.
Devotees of the original Alice books often have a hard time accepting Disney’s version, but historically the Lewis Carroll material has proven to be tough to adapt to stage or screen. Eva LeGallienne’s version is perhaps the most widely used stage adaptation, but even the most effective stage realizations cannot quite capture the dreamlike essence of the two books. The problem is, hewing close to the original can preserve some of the book’s literary merit but can lose some of the spontaneity and accessibility necessary for bringing a stage or film production to life. The Paramount version of the 1930’s tries to be a faithful adaptation but is a bit slow-moving and stodgy in places, and it famously puts its roster of then-popular artists behind masks which limits their recognition. (Worth seeing for diehard fans, I should add.)
I would probably throw in my lot with those who claim that Alice has never been successfully filmed, but given that blanket statement, I would also argue that Disney’s version comes closest to capturing the insane and dreamlike nature of the classic Carroll works. Certain scenes have become iconic and memorable in their own right, such as the Disney version of the Mad Tea Party with its infectious “Unbirthday Song”, and the amazing appearing and disappearing sequences featuring the Cheshire Cat (the voice of which character, Sterling Holloway, would a decade later bring Winnie-the-Pooh to cinematic life). I also would not miss Verna Felton’s unrestrained performance as the Queen of Hearts. In short, there is much to like and love about the Disney version of Alice–and there is no reason why it has to supplant the original books. Those who are drawn into Alice’s world through the Disney film can still be mightily rewarded through a reading of the original texts.
I would also like to mention another film that provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes (sort of) look at the Alice stories–and that is 1985’s Dreamchild, featuring Coral Browne as an elderly Alice traveling to New York City for a centenary celebration of Dodgson/Carroll. One of the highlights of this film is its recreation (with the help of Jim Henson) of several iconic scenes from the books, following for the most part the Tenniel illustrations. While not everyone’s cup of Wonderland or Looking-Glass tea, this film does provide some insights while raising even more questions.
For all the liberties it takes, Disney’s Alice in Wonderland is closer to the tone of the original than a lot of other versions that tend to go darker. Portions of the book seem to attract a more macabre interpretation than Caroll intended — like the Duchess abusing her baby, or the Queen of Heart’s obsession with decapitation — and Tenniel’s combination of realistic detail and exaggerated proportions come off as grotesque to modern tastes. What most people seem to forget is that this is a work of nonsense, it is not supposed to be taken seriously. This is why Walt’s Alice is so successful; it doesn’t forget the nonsense
I haven’t seen Walt’s “Alice” in quite a few years, but I remember it as being too fast, and too frenetic for what’s basically a verbal story. Lewis Carroll was a master of often subtle wordplay, which doesn’t translate well to the screen. If the viewer can’t slow down, as a reader can, the story loses much of its appeal, as well as its superb wit and Carroll’s playful toying with logic.
The Disney team tried to get that in there, but it’s more like they had instructions to go “full speed head,” no matter how well this approach might have served the material— or not. Seeing the trailer only bears this out.
As far as I’m concerned, the best Disney Carroll adaptation is “Through The Mirror” with Mickey Mouse. It’s consistently surprising and very funny, with great (and more sensible) timing, It also has the virtue of being only seven minutes long.
Much too short to bring on a headache from all the flashy fast cutting and oversaturated Technicolor.
Through The Mirror is definitely more playful and less conservative than the 1951 film. I didn’t find the cartoon to be funny at all but it’s charming.
I wonder how many here ever read the book? I certainly did. Like The Wizard of Oz, Pinocchio and others, the films can’t begin to offer all the characters, stories and fun found in those classic books.
…Not that I’d bet money on it, but I’d guess that each of the four people commenting before you have read the books? What I can say with certainty is that I’ve read them, several times, as they’re among my favorite works of fiction. I agree with Frederick Weigand’s take on Disney’s feature: while it doesn’t fully succeed in capturing the spirit of the books, it does have moments where it comes admirably close, and has its own positives (I’ll watch anything Mary Blair had a hand in designing, and it has my favorite Sterling Holloway performance).
I wish this film looked more like Mary Blair’s beautiful concept art.
https://pin.it/2mFCAtE6s
Apparently, it was too difficult to animate in her style, and I can’t really picture how these drawings would move.
i could picture myself but it’s not surprising that Disney never tried. Walt Disney mostly shunned cartoony and preferred magic realism.
Honestly, if it was so easy, I like to see someone try and not with computers (that would be too easy).
I agree with Frederick that the 1933 Paramount version is well worth seeing. However, in view of the present discussion I would also recommend the 1915 silent film adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland”, shot on Long Island and starring the euphoniously named Viola Savoy in the title role. The sets and the elaborate costumes, which really have to be seen to be believed, replicate Tenniel’s illustrations with uncanny fidelity.
Oh, and yes, I’ve read the books, too.
That’s the first I’ve heard of the 1915 silent version; it definitely sounds like something I’d enjoy checking out, thanks!
I am a DIEHARD Alice in Wonderland fan because my favorite character is Alice (I love the 1951 version of Alice) but still
I’ve always been partial to the 1972 live action musical:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068190
Although I do wish they hadn’t shoehorned Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum into what is otherwise an adaptation of only the first book.
I love the Irwin Allen miniseries. It includes almost every adventure from the two books.