Alice in Wonderland (1949 film)

Release

The film was kept out of Britain as his representation of the Queen of Hearts was seen as too close and too unkind to Queen Victoria.

The film was not widely seen in the U.S. upon its completion, due to a legal dispute with the Disney Studios, which was making its own full-length animated version of Alice at the same time as the Bower version was being worked on. Disney sued to prevent release of the British version in the U.S., and the case was extensively covered in Time magazine. The company that released the British version accused Disney of trying to exploit their film by releasing its version at virtually the same time.

Both films flopped in the U.S. when they opened in 1951, but Disney saw to it that the fame of its version was kept alive by showing an edited version of it on network television as part of their Disneyland TV series and issuing two record albums based on the film. The Disney version eventually reached classic film status and was re-released in 1974 and 1981. The British version, meanwhile, also was sold to television, but only to local stations, where it was eclipsed by showings of the all-star Paramount 1933 live-action film version of the story, which, incidentally, had also flopped in movie theaters.