Los Angeles Film Noir Festival 2010

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Alice

You're late for Tea!

More about Alice

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to "Alice in Wonderland") is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.[1] It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar and anthropomorphic creatures. The tale is filled with allusions to Dodgson's friends. The tale plays with logic in ways that have given the story lasting popularity with adults as well as children. It is considered to be one of the most characteristic examples of the "literary nonsense" genre, and its narrative course and structure have been enormously influential, especially in the fantasy genre.

Lorina Charlotte Liddell (aged 13, born 1849) ("Prima" in the book's prefatory verse)

Alice Pleasance Liddell (aged 10, born 1852) ("Secunda" in the prefatory verse)

Edith Mary Liddell (aged 8, born 1853) ("Tertia" in the prefatory verse).

The three girls were the daughters of Henry George Liddell, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and Dean of Christ Church as well as headmaster of Westminster School. Most of the book's adventures were based on and influenced by people, situations and buildings in Oxford and at Christ Church, e.g., the "Rabbit Hole" which symbolized the actual stairs in the back of the main hall in Christ Church. It is believed that a carving of a griffon and rabbit, as seen in Ripon Cathedral, where Carroll's father was a canon, provided inspiration for the tale.

The journey had started at Folly Bridge near Oxford and ended five miles away in the village of Godstow. To while away time the Reverend Dodgson told the girls a story that, not so coincidentally, featured a bored little girl named Alice who goes looking for an adventure.

The girls loved it, and Alice Liddell asked Dodgson to write it down for her. After a lengthy delay — over two years — he eventually did so and on 26 November 1864 gave Alice the handwritten manuscript ofAlice's Adventures Under Ground, with illustrations by Dodgson himself. Some, including Martin Gardner, speculate there was an earlier version that was destroyed later by Dodgson himself when he printed a more elaborate copy by hand (Gardner, 1965), but there is no known prima facie evidence to support this.

But before Alice received her copy, Dodgson was already preparing it for publication and expanding the 15,500-word original to 27,500 words, most notably adding the episodes about the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Tea-Party.

The Mad Hatter

Goofy, Charming and oh yes. .  quite Mad! The Mad Hatter!

What else about The Mad Hatter?

The Hatter is a fictional character initially encountered at a tea party in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and later again as "Hatta" in the story's sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. He is popularly referred to as the "Mad Hatter", but is never called by this name in Carroll's book—although the Cheshire Cat does warn Alice that he is mad, and the Hatter's eccentric behaviour supports this. Likewise, the chapter in which he first appears, "A Mad Tea-Party", is often called "The Mad Hatter's Tea Party" (despite the fact that it is actually being held at the March Hare's house).

Although the name "Mad Hatter" was undoubtedly inspired by the phrase "as mad as a hatter", there is some uncertainty as to the origins of this phrase. As mercury was used in the process of curing pelts used in some hats, it was impossible for hatters to avoid inhaling the mercury fumes given off during the hatmaking process. Hatters and mill workers often suffered mercury poisoning as residual mercury vapor caused neurological damage including confused speech and distorted vision; hatmaking was the main trade in Stockport, near where Carroll grew up.

The Hatter explains to Alice that he and the March Hare are always having tea because, when he tried to sing for the Queen of Hearts at a celebration of hers, she sentenced him to death for "murdering the time," but he escapes decapitation. Out of anger at this attempted "murder", Time (referred to as a "Him") halts himself in respect to the Hatter, keeping him and the March Hare stuck at 6:00 forever. The tea party, when Alice arrives, is characterized by switching places on the table at any given time, making (along with the March Hare) somewhat short, personal remarks, asking unanswerable riddles and reciting nonsensical poetry, all of which eventually drive Alice away. He appears again as a witness at the Knave of Hearts' trial, where the Queen appears to recognize him as the singer she sentenced to death, and the King also cautions him not to be nervous "or I'll have you executed on the spot."

The Queen of Hearts

"OFF WITH HER HEAD!"

Whom among us has not heard this phrase as bellowed by the Queen of Hearts in the Disney animated version of Alice in Wonderland? Like her, Hate her, the story just would not be the same without her.

A little more about the Queen.

The Queen of Hearts is a character from the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by the writer and mathematician Lewis Carroll. She is a foul-tempered monarch, that Carroll himself pictured as "a blind fury", and who is quick to decree death sentences at the slightest offense. Her most famous line, one which she repeats often, is "Off with their heads!"

The Queen is referred to as a card from a pack of playing cards by Alice, yet somehow she is able to talk and is the ruler of the lands in the story, alongside the King of Hearts. She is often confused with theRed Queen from the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, although the two are very different.

Alice is recommended, by three gardening playing cards (who are painting roses so that they are the right color for the Queen), to drop down on the ground to avoid being confronted by her. She is confused, and having never met the Queen, ignores this advice. When the Queen arrives and asks Alice who is lying on the ground (since the backs of all playing cards look alike), Alice tells her that she does not know. The Queen then becomes frustrated and commands that her head be severed. She is deterred by her comparatively moderate husband by being reminded that Alice is only a child.

Generally, however, as we are told by Carroll:The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said, without even looking round.

One of the Queen's hobbies - besides ordering executions - is croquet, however it is Wonderland croquet, where the balls are live hedgehogs and the mallets are flamingoes. This is presumably with the aim that the birds' blunt beaks should strike, but, as Alice observes, it is complicated by the fact that they keep looking back up at the players- as well as the hedgehogs' tendency to scuttle away without waiting to be hit. The Queen's soldiers act as the arches (or hoops) on the croquet grounds, but have to leave off being arches every time the Queen has an executioner drag away the victim, so that, by the end of the game in the story, the only players that remain are the Queen herself, the King, and Alice.

Despite the frequency of death sentences, it would appear few people are actually beheaded. The King of Hearts quietly pardons many of his subjects when the Queen is not looking (although this did not seem to be the case with The Duchess), and her soldiers humor her but do not carry out her orders. The Gryphon tells Alice that "It's all her fancy: she never executes nobody, you know." Nevertheless, all creatures in Wonderland fear the Queen. In the final chapters, the Queen sentences Alice again (for defending the Knave of Hearts) and she offers an interesting approach towards justice: sentence before verdict.

The White Rabbit

The herald of 'Don't be late' is well known to most of us who grew up on the tale of Alice in Wonderland.  He is after all the catalyst for the story, as it is his rabbit hole that Alice falls into, beginning her adventures.

More on the White Rabbit from Wiki:

The White Rabbit is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. He appears at the very beginning of the book, in chapter one, wearing a waistcoat, and muttering "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" Alice follows him down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Alice encounters him again when he mistakes her for his housemaid Mary Ann and she becomes trapped in his house after growing too large. The Rabbit shows up again in the last few chapters, as a herald-like servant of the King and Queen of Hearts.

In the Disney version of the book, the Rabbit seems to have the most logic out of all the Wonderland characters. Thus, he is often the straight man for their zany antics; when he asks the Dodo for help on getting the "monster" (Alice) out of his house, Dodo's ultimate solution is to burn the house down, to which the White Rabbit is greatly opposed. At the Mad Tea Party, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare try to "fix" his watch, proclaiming it "exactly two days slow". Through various food they put in the watch (butter, tea, jam, and lemon), the two cause it to go mad, and the Hare smashes it with his mallet. The Rabbit was perhaps most famous for the little ditty he sang at the beginning - "I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!". The Rabbit was voiced by Bill Thompson.

Some believe the rabbit was late for the announcement of the Queen to the royal garden. The panic the rabbit showed was his fear of losing his head. Upon her arrival (where Alice has been helping to paint the roses red) the cards finish their song and the rabbit blows his trumpet (which he had been carrying for most of his lines) royally introducing the king and queen.

"Satan S'amuse," Segunda de Chomon, 1907

Segundo De Chomon - Satan s'amuse (1907)
by Galaxy_Of_Terror

In this silent film from 1907 ~"In an unnamed place, Satan is bored. Despite his servants' exertions, nothing can be found to cheer him up." According to weirdwildrealm.com ~ Teruel Segundo de Chomon y Ruiz (1871-1929) was an Aragonese film pioneer who worked in Paris for Pathe from 1905-1910. His association with Pathe began in 1901 when from Barcelona he hand-tinted Pathe releases, & his own earliest works from 1902 were distributed in France by Pathe.

Eerie Film Clip