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| Joan Rice at the premiere of Alice in Wonderland |
Above is a lovely press picture of Joan Rice attending the premiere of Walt Disney's animated cartoon Alice in Wonderland at the Leicester Square Theatre in London on the 26th July 1951.
By this time, filming of Disney's live-action movie the Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (1952) had just finished at Denham Studios in Buckinghamshire. This would be Joan's first 'big' movie as she had been personally chosen by Walt to play the part of Maid Marian. J. Arthur Rank had billed her as the 'next Jean Simmons', so she was very popular with the British newspapers and magazines of the time. We can only imagine how this former waitress felt when she attended the premiere of Alice in Wonderland knowing she was the new toast of the film world.
Coincidentally I have been contacted recently by Matt Crandall who has a blog dedicated to Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland. It is a fantastic site, filled with amazing amounts of information and memorabilia from the classic movie. During his search for Disneyana connected to Alice, Matt had seen copies of the Belgian 'Mickey Magazine' containing the strip of Disney's Robin Hood and kindly said he would send me the images.
Below is an example of Matt's Alice in Wonderland blog:
Matt sent me this email:
I have recently come across what I believe is the complete adaptation as it appeared in Mickey Magazine in Belgium (French) issues 120-145. Let me know if you'd like scans.
Matt
VintageDisneyAlice.blogspot.com
Matt has already sent me this sample (below) from the Belgium Mickey Mouse and there are more to come soon!
Matt's blog is here: Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland.
Joan Rice
ReplyDeleteAlice in Wonderland (1951)
Special thanks to Matt
You are more than welcome! About 1/3 scanned, hope to have the remainder completed this weekend.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks Matt. Can't wait to see them!
ReplyDeleteJoan Rice looks very beautiful as she attends the Premiere. She would just have finished filming The Story of Robin Hood - possibly only days before - in fact she may have had a few more scenes to do. As she stands there she must be wondering just where next - she probably didn't know then that she would be going to the other side of the world - to Fiji in fact - to film His Majesty O'Keefe.
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