Movie Audio Commentary - Alice in Wonderland - 1951

Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. The production was supervised by Ben Sharpsteen, and was directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske. With the voices of Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna and Kathryn Beaumont in her film debut, the film follows a young girl, Alice, who falls down a rabbit hole and enters a nonsensical world, Wonderland, which is ruled by the Queen of Hearts, while encountering strange creatures, including the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat.

Walt Disney was supposed to make his first film Alice which was supposed to star Mary Pickford as Alice, but he chose not to do the film and instead did Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). However, the idea was eventually revived in the 1940s, following the success of Snow White. The film was originally intended to be a live-action/animated film, but Disney decided it would be a fully animated feature film. During its production, many sequences adapted from Carroll's books were later omitted, such as Jabberwocky, the White Knight, the Duchess, Mock Turtle and the Gryphon.

Alice in Wonderland premiered at the Leicester Square Theatre in London on July 26, 1951, and was released in New York City on July 28. The film was also shown on television as one of the first episodes of Disneyland. It was initially considered a box-office bomb, grossing $2.4 million domestically and received generally negative reviews from critics. However, its 1974 re-release in theaters proved to be much more successful, leading to subsequent re-releases, merchandising and home video releases; it has been more positively reviewed over the years, being regarded as one of Disney's best animated films today.