10 Landmark Movies That Were The First Of Their Kind
3. The First Alice In Wonderland Adaptation - 1903
Since there have been more than forty-three adaptations of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland since it was written in 1866, it seems fair to say its pretty much a film subgenre onto itself. The directors that got there first were Percy Stow and Cecil Hepworth in 1903 with their nine-and-a-half-minute version. Or at least nine and a half minutes is how much of the film survives, since two and a half minutes of it are lost. What remains is very heavily damaged. It looks as if the film might break apart and need to be spliced at any second even as you watch it on Youtube. Although for its time it was surely a special effects extravaganza, the story is mostly a pretty routine and condensed run through of the famous tale's plot points. As far as intrinsic entertainment value for the film itself, the definite highlight is this movies version of the Cheshire Cat. Instead of any sort of smartass, creepy creature with a grin, its a bored cat superimposed into the scene that doesnt even look at Alice. A really strange moment since everything else in the movie is played more or less straight and all the other creatures are played by people in animal costumes as youd expect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeIXfdogJbA
