Tuesday, July 26, 2011

World Premiere - Leicester Square Theatre, London

Although the Walt Disney Company celebrates the anniversary of the release of Alice in Wonderland on July 28th, it in fact had its world premiere on July 26th in London.  Here we have a photograph of Walt and Kathy at the world premiere, Kathy in her fanciest Alice costume and Walt looking smashing in his tux.
The premiere was at the Leicester Square Theatre in London, and they went all out for the displays as you can see in this photo.  Notice how the accompanying short is Beaver Valley; in the US it would be replaced by Nature's Half Acre.  If you look carefully, you'll see that several of the display pieces are enlargements of pages from the Big Golden Book.
Man, what I wouldn't give to have this World Premiere poster, even if the art of the Cheshire Cat is a little scary.
The Leicester Square Theatre is still in use today, although it is now known as the Odeon West End Cinema.
Photo courtesy of Matthew Lloyd of the
Music Hall and Theatre History Site

5 comments:

Curt Jensen said...

Awesome post! Glad to see the pics of the premiere.

Snow White Archive said...

Super post! Love seeing the photos outside the theatre with the giant Alice poster above. And yes, that "world premiere" sheet would be a real find today!

Major Pepperidge said...

Love the photo of Kathy Beaumont and Walt! Did she live in the States?

Those marquees for movie premiers are amazing; actually compared to some that I've seen from New York City, the Alice marquee is almost restrained.

Matt said...

@major - yes, by this time Kathy was living in the States, so she traveled to England for the premiere - by boat! There is a great video of Kathy on the ship talking to a reporter that I have somewhere...

LisaInWonderland said...

Love this post!!