Lewis Carroll’s Alice on Screen

This week’s Tim Burton “Alice Through the Looking Glass” is the latest film to feature one of the most popular characters in movie history, based on the books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. That was the pen name of a Oxford mathematics professor named Charles Dodgson, who wrote the books in 1865 to entertain a little girl named Alice Liddell.

The stories have been adapted for every possible kind of media, from theater to the earliest silent films, audio and radio, one of Disney’s most popular animated features, and live-action films. Some of the most memorable include:

A 1903 British silent film with some of the earliest special effects.

Walt Disney’s 1923 “Laugh-o-Grams,” a series of “Alice” stories with a little girl interacting with animated characters was a variation on Alice in Wonderland.

Disney Studio’s 1951 animated version.

A 1983 television adaptation with Richard Burton and his daughter Kate Burton.

A 1972 musical version with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and future Phantom of the Opera star Michael Crawford.

A 1985 television version with Carol Channing as the White Queen.

A ballet.

Kate Beckinsale in “Through the Looking Glass”