Alice in Wonderland by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Actors

• Natalie Gregory
• Sheila Allen
• Sharee Gregory
• Red Buttons
• Sherman Hemsley

Format

• Closed-captioned
• Color
• Full Screen
• Subtitled
• NTSC

Editorial Review

The king of 1970s disaster movies, producer Irwin Allen, brought together novelist Paul Zindel, songwriter Steve Allen, and a host of celebrities for a pair of 1985 TV movies paying homage to Lewis Carroll's Alice. In this first installment, the 7-year-old girl dreams of being grown up enough to join the adults for tea, only to shrink to miniature size, climb through a hole beneath the door, and follow a twitchy Red Buttons in big white rabbit ears. Whether arguing with the Mad Hatter (Anthony Newley), or trying to keep her head in the company of the Queen of Hearts (Jayne Meadows), Alice is constantly running into a host of '70s and '80s personalities like Telly Savalas, Ringo Starr, Scott Baio, and Shelley Winters. If this roster isn't enough to make a poor girl trippy, she also meets up with Sammy Davis Jr. as the caterpillar, and the pair perform an entertaining hip-hop-esque tap number to “Father William.” An enjoyably campy version of Alice's wondrous journey, it features detailed sets, marvelously tacky costumes, and mildly clever musical numbers. This 90-minute TV movie's pleasant goofiness will amuse children 4 and older as well as nostalgically minded adults. The TV movie has been broken into two parts on video with Alice Through the Looking Glass picking up where this one leaves off. –Kimberly Heinrichs