Alice in Wonderland (1903)

Saw Alice in Wonderland (1903) It was mainly a special-effects exposé, devoting an entire fifth of its runtime (of 5 minutes) to size transformations. They are done as well as you'd expect for 1903. The film sticks closely to the book, even depicting some minor scenes not shown in other movies. It shows the scene, for example, when small Alice is attacked by a playful puppy and that she uses a fan to shrink herself just before the pool of tears (which is not shown, alas. The joke here is that she is wet with tears and as she dries herself she shrinks like fabric.) It also specifies that the Duchess is the owner of the Cheshire cat (which she is, in the book.) The Cheshire cat has become more interesting as a free agent and many films ignore his owner. This little fact's inclusion was interesting. The film contains some fanciful costumes (which I felt were sometimes a bit sinister, what with the deteriorated film stock and all, but they never got so bad as for me to be able to take a screenshot) and ancient camera trickery.