The Third Alice, 1915

Directed by W.W. YOUNG (whose only other film credit is as editor of 1931’s Mystery of Life) and released January 19, 1915, the third silent version of Alice in Wonderland stars 14-year-old VIOLA SAVOY as Alice and HERBERT RICE as the White Rabbit. Savoy’s only other film role also came in 1915, as Clarice Van Zandt in director Walter Edwin’s The Spendthrift. Herbert Rice had appeared in 1912’s The Two Chefs and Poor Finney, portrayed Monsieur Paul in 1916’s The Rainbow Princess and had an uncredited role as a dwarf in the 1916 film version of Snow White. At www.imdb.com, JoeytheBrit (www.moviemoviesite.com) offers the following review of the 1915 Alice:

Viola Savoy plays Alice in this early silent adaptation of incidents from both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. She's good enough, but it's the creatures she encounters that capture the viewer's attention. This being 1915, long before the concept of CGI etc., all the creatures are actors in costumes that barely rise above pantomime quality but which were probably quite impressive for their day. The film shows most of the familiar scenes from the books, although, possibly because of the technical difficulties involved, it shies away from showing us Alice shrinking and growing. The Mad Hatter's tea party is also missing, which is something of a surprise. Watching this film, it struck me how easily the story of Alice could be told as a horror story, with babies turning into pigs, mad monarchs threatening everyone with decapitation, etc. As it is, the combination of outlandish costumes filmed against real rural or coastal locations, and the absence of dialogue, gives this film a strangely surreal, dreamlike atmosphere at times that is quite pleasant to watch. From IMDB.com (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0004873/)

Alice in Wonderland, 1915

(a tip of the hat to YouTube poster rosebudgarden for the nice work done on the music here. Subscribe to rosebudgarden’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/rosebudgarden. It offers an interesting mix of film and fashion, both vintage and contemporary.)

(Illustration of Alice by Sir John Tenniel for the fourth chapter of Lewis Carroll’s original edition of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. Wood engraving by Thomas Dalziel. Used by permission of The Victorian Web (http://www.victorianweb.org/index.html)