Alice in Wonderland (1939 David Hall Leica Reel)

The Disney film Alice in Wonderland has been planned out since the 1930's, as the first ever animated film by Disney. Ultimately, the film was not released until the year 1951. There were many different drafts of the film through the years, but probably the most intriguing one was the 1939 draft.

The draft had beautiful artwork done by talented British artist David Hall, a script by Al Perkins, and songs by Frank Churchill. Walt Disney ultimately turned the draft down, as the denizens of Wonderland looked far too monstrous for his tastes, and were hard to animate, as they resembled the Teniel illustrations too closely. The tone was also overall incredibly grim and frightening, with most of the inhabitants of Wonderland being outright bloodthirsty towards poor Alice, (such as the Mad Hatter and March Hair about to dice Alice into pieces with scissors and a knife, Alice being attacked by hordes of birds, and even being placed on a guillotine near the end).

Ultimately, the Disney studios instead went for a lighter, more modern approach with the final film. However, bits and pieces of this early version have emerged from time to time.

Avaliability
In 1944, 30 of Hall's illustrations were used in the book Walt Disney's Surprise Package, which contained a telling of the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland story. As this book has not been avaliable for years, it is thus quite rare. In 1986, a full-sized Alice's Adventures in Wonderland reprint was avaliable with dozens of Hall illustrations. The 1995 Archive Collection laserdisc also contained a recreation of the Leica reel of the film, but it was incomplete, as the last quarter of the script was missing. The songs commisionned for the film were also on the disc in a seperate section, and some of them have been published in "Disney's Lost Chords".