Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972)

An opulent adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s famous novel about a little girl encountering fantastical creatures, made with actors in deliberately artificial animal costumes, and featuring sets so two-dimensional they seem borrowed from a stage production, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland feels like an attempt to create a British companion piece to The Wizard of Oz (1939). From the myriad musical numbers to the use of comedy performers in supporting roles, the picture echoes many elements of the MGM classic, yet doesn’t come close to emulating the magic of Dorothy Gale’s journey to a land over the rainbow. One issue is the malevolence inherent to Carroll’s narrative—whereas the beloved Disney cartoon made from this story, Alice in Wonderland (1951), replaced some of the creepier aspects of Carroll’s book with whimsical flourishes, this version accentuates the frightening nature of Alice’s experiences inside the rabbit hole. (Intense surrealism and lighthearted children’s entertainment aren’t exactly the best mix.) Other problem areas include John Barry’s score and Fiona Fullerton’s leading performance. Barry employs his standard idiom of sweepingly romantic strings, and the resulting music feels way too heavy for a lark about a little girl imagining that drinking magical potions can alter her natural size. As for Fullerton, she’s a pretty young woman whose looks are similar to those of Kirsten Dunst, but she seems too grown-up for this material even though she was a teenager when the film was shot. She’s also highly forgettable. Several English notables are wasted in featured roles as the Caterpillar, the Door Mouse, and other weirdly anthropomorphic Carroll creations; those zipping in and out of the movie without making much impact include Michael Crawford, Spike Milligan, Dudley Moore, Ralph Richardson, and Peter Sellers.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: LAME

The Games (1970)

A few months before they collectively hit paydirt with the sappy romantic tragedy Love Story (1970), star Ryan O’Neal, writer Erich Segal, and composer Francis Lai collaborated on The Games, an impressively produced but hopelessly trite drama about four long-distance runners preparing for their grueling competition in the Olympic marathon. Based on a novel by Hugh Atkinson, the movie follows parallel storylines, developing potboiler drama about what might or might not happen on the day of the big race in Rome. O’Neal plays Scott, an American stud accustomed to easily winning every race he enters; echoing the tragic strains of Love Story, he develops a heart condition and, thanks to the enabling behavior of his best bud (Sam Elliott), a habit of taking speed to maintain his edge during races. Michael Crawford, later to achieve fame as the star of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage production The Phantom of the Opera, plays Harry, a cheery British milkman who gets discovered and mentored by a merciless trainer (Stanley Baker) obsessed with breaking records. French actor/singer Charles Aznavour plays Pavel, an aging Czech runner enlisted by his Soviet overlords to reenter competition because Harry recently broke Pavel’s most famous speed record, which was a point of Soviet pride. Rounding out the cast is Athol Compton as Pintubi, a guileless Aborgine discovered and exploited by a sleazy Aussie promoter (Jeremy Kemp). Will Scott’s heart hold out? How will Harry fare when the brutal Italian heat exceeds 90 degrees? Can 40-year-old Pavel keep up with younger runners? And how will Pintubi fare, especially since he’s such a child of nature he prefers running barefoot? Discovering the answers to these questions involves a few fleeting moments of human drama, particularly in Harry’s storyline, but Segal’s writing, as in Love Story, is so superficial that the movie feels like an appetizer instead of a meal. The performances are generally fairly good, even if nearly every actor is forced to personify a cliché, and the production values are noteworthy since the picture was shot in Australia, Austria, England, Italy, and Japan. So, while The Games is pleasant and features many interesting details about world-class running, it’s completely forgettable.

The Games: FUNKY