Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Film and TV productions across the years

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland starring Fiona Fullerton made in 1972

introduction	picnic and rabbit	the pool of tears	caterpillar to duchess	a mad tea party
a game of croquet	the lobster quadrille	the trials beginning	odds and ends	next film

lice goes through a door set in a tree and finds herself back in the long corridor she started out in. She's able to retrieve the key to the tiny door and enter the beautiful garden where she meets the Queen Of Hearts and takes part in a very strange game of croquet.

This scene is notable for the sumptuous costumes. No expense has been spared in recreating the look of the classic playing-card illustrations. Denis Price and Flora Robson as the King and Queen of Hearts are particularly resplendent, and the whole ensemble twists and turns in a colourful pageant.

The Queen is as bad-tempered as we've come to expect, and her fall-back phrase of "off with her/his head" is always sung in this scene.

It's noticable that Flora Robson hardly ever looks directly at Fiona Fullerton, despite them having several face-to-face scenes. It's almost as though the grand old dame of the theatre is intolerant of the fifteen-year-old newcomer. I don't suppose we'll ever know, but there's a moment in one of the exchanges when Alice gets avery wicked glint in her eye.

The Croquet game is madly chaotic, with everyone running around in all directions. Alice and the White Rabbit get some dialogue together and a good time appears to be had by all.

The Knave, played by Rodney Bewes, gets a good whacking from the Queen with her flamingo. Bewes, like Michael Crawford at the time, was best known for his television work, having starred in the long-running "Likely Lads" sitcom.

In fact, much of the cast seems to have come from a television backround. In the scene with the gardeners, for example, there's Denis Waterman as the Two Of Spades. Waterman achieved great fame in both "The Sweeney" and the "Minder" TV series.

Dennis Price was an actor of very long standing, having done extensive theatre work and appearing in a great number of fiilms made on both sides of the Atlantic. His death by suicide was a great shock and an enormous loss to the entertainment industry.

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