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− | An Art Deco Manhattan becomes as much a Wonderland for Mrs. Hargreaves as the one Dodgson invented for her so long before. These rude, slangy, overly familiar Americans seem to come at her from all directions. When all this hubbub and the city |
+ | An Art Deco Manhattan becomes as much a Wonderland for Mrs. Hargreaves as the one Dodgson invented for her so long before. These rude, slangy, overly familiar Americans seem to come at her from all directions. When all this hubbub and the city's immensity threaten to overwhelm and exhaust her to the point of inducing intimations of mortality, she begins to think about her long-ago childhood and about Dodgson, whom she "scarce remembers." In these moments she becomes not merely the 10-year-old Alice (pert Amelia Shankley), but also Alice in Wonderland as she encounters such beloved creatures as the Masd Hatter and the March Hare, which Jim Henson's Creature Shop brings to life with the charm of Sir John Tenniel's original drawings.}} |
:--Kevin Thomas. ''Los Angeles Times''. October 18, 1985. |
:--Kevin Thomas. ''Los Angeles Times''. October 18, 1985. |
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− | {{quote|Particularly impressive here is the animatronics work of Jim Henson's Creature Shop (of ''[[The Muppets]]'', ''[[The Dark Crystal]]'', and ''[[Star Wars|The Empire Strikes Back]]'' fame). Henson has worked from the famous Tenniel drawings, but uses them as a basis for his own creation rather than attempting a slavish copy. Thus, for example, the Caterpillar (which Tenniel drew only from behind) is given a face, while creatures like the Gryphon, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare are more ferocious and less endearing than their originals. The Gryphon's grotesque quality has been emphasised by |
+ | {{quote|Particularly impressive here is the animatronics work of Jim Henson's Creature Shop (of ''[[The Muppets]]'', ''[[The Dark Crystal]]'', and ''[[Star Wars|The Empire Strikes Back]]'' fame). Henson has worked from the famous Tenniel drawings, but uses them as a basis for his own creation rather than attempting a slavish copy. Thus, for example, the Caterpillar (which Tenniel drew only from behind) is given a face, while creatures like the Gryphon, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare are more ferocious and less endearing than their originals. The Gryphon's grotesque quality has been emphasised by giving it the body of a man, the legs of a lion, and virtually no fur; the Hare has extremely dirty feral teeth and scars and flecks of blood on his neck (indicating the 'madness' that goes with the March mating season), while the Hatter (who seems curiously Semiticized) has all the symptoms of "Hatter's Shakes," a form of mercury poisoning which affected hatters and gave rise to the expression "mad as a hatter." Allied with Potter's additions to their various speeches, Henson's contributions make these figures less like harmless nursery-rhyme eccentrics and more like externalisations of the various fears and worries that beset Mrs. Hargreaves as she approaches death, trying simultaneously to cope with the alien present and to put the ambiguous past in order. As the Caterpillar says: "You are old, Mrs. Hargreaves."}} |
:--Julian Petley. ''Monthly Film Bulletin''. January [[1986]]. |
:--Julian Petley. ''Monthly Film Bulletin''. January [[1986]]. |
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Revision as of 22:22, 10 October 2007
Released | October 4, 1985 |
Duration | 94 minutes |
Director | Gavin Millar |
Written by | Dennis Potter |
Music | Max Harris, Stanley Myers |
Studio | EMI Films Ltd |
Rated | PG |
Dreamchild tells the semi-biographical story of Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) and his relationship with young Alice Liddell. Caroll dedicated his books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There to Liddell, and her name was borrowed for the fictional Alice. The film focuses on an elderly Alice, now Mrs. Alice Hargreaves, visiting the United States for a Lewis Carroll centenary event, who flashes back to her friendship with Carroll, and is haunted by dreams of meeting the characters from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Jim Henson's Creature Shop was employed for the dream sequences, building lifelike puppets of characters like the Gryphon, the Mock Turtle, the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse, the Caterpillar, and the March Hare.
Dreamchild is notable for being the first film project the Creature Shop worked on outside of the Henson company. Early versions of cable controls were used, instead of the still early developmental animatronics.
Cast
- Coral Browne as Alice Hargreaves
- Peter Gallagher as Jack Dolan
- Ian Holm as Reverend Charles L. Dodgson
- Jane Asher as Mrs. Liddell
- Nicola Cowper as Lucy
- Caris Corfman as Sally
- Amelia Shankley as Young Alice
Voice Cast
- Fulton MacKay as the Gryphon
- Alan Bennett as the Mock Turtle
- Julie Walters as the Dormouse
- Kenneth Campbell as the March Hare
- Tony Haygarth as the Mad Hatter
- Frank Middlemass as the Caterpillar
Puppeteers
- Ron Mueck as the Gryphon
- Steve Whitmire as the Mock Turtle / the Caterpillar
- Karen Prell as the Dormouse
- Big Mick as the Mad Hatter
- Michael Sundin as the March Hare
Cable Control Operators
- David Barclay, Lyle Conway, Sadie Corre, Chris Eveleigh, Richard Jones, Lesja Liber, Michael Osborn, Chris Ostwald, Mike Quinn, Neal Scanlan, John Stephenson, Melissa Whitmire, Cas Willing
Reviews
- --Kevin Thomas. Los Angeles Times. October 18, 1985.
- --Julian Petley. Monthly Film Bulletin. January 1986.