(Dave Fleminger and Heather Vorwerck of the guitar/cello duo The Comeuppance ride the Mad Hatter’s coat tails and drop some fresh new tracks into the rabbit hole. Dave describes the journey.)
Recently I chanced upon the English director Cecil Hepworth’s 1903 movie “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” It was the first cinematic portrayal of Lewis Carroll’s famous Victorian novel. The only remaining print of the film is unfortunately quite damaged, even missing some scenes, but it’s a magical movie. And if anything the state of the film stock even adds to its otherworldly quality — perhaps because it was made less than 40 years after the book was first published. it offers a small glimpse into the very world from which the story originated.
Clearly, the storyline was already well-known to the 1903 movie-going public, as Hepworth chose to illustrate scenes from the book without much explanation of the plot.
