This quickie version of the children's classic shot in New York doesn't actually compare that badly with the mess Paramount made of it a couple of years later, and achieves a fair degree of the book's wit and certainly its strangeness; which the cheap stylised sets if anything enhance. Director Bud Pollard does his best to embellish things with occasional optical and editing effects; although for most of the rest of the time his blocking of the action leaves something to be desired.
Against this ramshackle backdrop nineteen year-old Ruth Gilbert's good-humoured, gurgling-voiced Alice carries the film rather well; although looking nearly as bizarre to modern eyes as the rest of the cast in her obvious platinum-blonde wig and vampish Lily Munster makeup.
Against this ramshackle backdrop nineteen year-old Ruth Gilbert's good-humoured, gurgling-voiced Alice carries the film rather well; although looking nearly as bizarre to modern eyes as the rest of the cast in her obvious platinum-blonde wig and vampish Lily Munster makeup.