the animated, brightly banded Chesire cat smiling, sitting on a tree branchalr

Alice in Wonderland

Screening on Film
Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske.
With Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn.
US, 1951, 35mm, color, 75 min.
Print source: HFA

Now celebrated as a proto-psychedelic classic, Disney’s visually dazzling version of Alice in Wonderland was poorly received in its first release when it met criticism for not remaining sufficiently faithful to the Lewis Carroll original. Stung by the film’s box-office failure, Walt Disney reportedly vowed the film would not be theatrically released again in his lifetime. Following the countercultural success of Fantasia when it was rediscovered as a “head movie” by youth audiences in the late Sixties, Alice in Wonderland subsequently found a new life when it was rereleased in the early Seventies and became a runaway hit on college campuses, where its oneiric tale of magic mushrooms and rabbit holes had taken on obvious new resonance. – Haden Guest

PRECEDED BY

  • Peyote Queen

    Directed by Storm De Hirsch.
    US, 1965, 16mm, color, 9 min.
    Print source: Anthology Film Archives

American poet and filmmaker Storm de Hirsh (1912-2000) was an influential figure within the vibrant avant-garde movement that transformed art- and filmmaking in the Sixties. Peyote Queen is a classic example of her experimental animation and bold technique of scratching lines and forms directly into the film emulsion. Set to a mixed soundtrack of different percussive music, Peyote Queen pulls the viewer into a trance animated by playfully sexualized figures and hypnotic mandalas. – Haden Guest


Preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Image courtesy Anthology Film Archives

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