Alice au pays des merveilles (1949)
https://youtu.be/4jPbelf_-XM?t=16m53s
No English subtitles but you can enjoy the fantasy and animated scenes without them. You already know the story!
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Information About the Film
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In 1946, Lou Bunin was approached by M. Aisner, a French screenwriter, to work on an Alice with a live action girl in a stop-motion animated Wonderland, in both French and English. Bunin agreed and hired Art Babbit, Bernyce Polifka, and Gene Flury to work on the film. All the shooting was done in France while the actors came from England. In 1949, the film premiered in France.
However, in the States, Walt Disney was working on his own animated Alice and had worked on and off the idea since 1933. Coincidentally, Bunin's film sounds similar to one of the original concepts Disney had of a live action Alice in a traditionally animated Wonderland (I do not know if Bunin was aware of this). Disney filed a lawsuit as he thought audiences would be confused and would see the 'wrong' Alice and his company had spent more money and time on their production. However, as Alice in Wonderland was a public domain story, the court threw it out, even stating that competition should be encouraged. Disney used his influence at Technicolor to deny the best color process to the Bunin production, forcing them to use Ansco. This is why most copies of the film have discolorations and quality deterioration. Then he used his influence to discourage movie theaters from showing Bunin's film so it had a limited release. Both movies premiered the same week.
This is why some ads of the Disney film at the time say "There is only ONE Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland" and why 1949 is mostly unknown in the U.S.
As for the condition of the film itself: all English versions of the film on DVD are awfully edited and are transferred from the VHS tape rather thPost too long. Click here to view the full text.
