Some stories beg to be filmed. I’ve seen five versions of Alice in Wonderland—two of them silent—with at least ten more to go. That’s just movies, mind you; not TV. The appeal of the story seems simple enough: a children’s classic with hidden depths; compelling to kids and their parents alike; humorous and frightening in turn… and profoundly weird, in a mostly visual way that leaves f/x pioneers licking their chops, generation after generation. Alice has infinite potential, it seems; so much so that no one adaptation has eclipsed its fellows the way The Wizard of Oz did all others, before and after 1939. There will always be room for another Alice. The 1915 version, alas, makes you grateful.
