A stack of previous Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass adaptations hit DVD in advance of the Alice in Burtonland movie that's currently devouring money whole. Most notably absent from that flood was the Disney animated Alice (remastered and hitting DVD on 30 March). For me, the best of the bunch is the 1966 one the BBC did that costars Peter Sellers, John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave, and Peter Cook.

The main reason I like it is that it's more unapologetically weird and creepy than most filmed attempts at the story. You get the impression that Alice has gotten her hands on some LSD and had a really bad trip. Hell, the whole thing is probably more enjoyable while on acid. The Ravi Shankar score reinforces this theory. As odd as a recommendation this may seem at this point, it's worth watching for Cook as the Mad Hatter and Sellers as the King of Hearts.

A capture from the 1903 silent short adaptation.

The DVD includes a surprising amount of extras, from a director's commentary to Alice, a 70-minute 1965 biopic about the real person who inspired the character. The commentary track with Jonathan Miller hits on some really nice notes, like the fact that Hollywood thens to over-gloss the portrayal of dreams. He directly hates upon the Disney animated feature. A quick tangent to an anecdote about Lillian Hellman, and we're off to the races. Miller has four decades of ammo built up, and the track is just chock full of interesting nuggets.

The acting style of the time is absolutely hilarious, and it's much more evident in Alice, the biopic, than the feature. The 9-minute or so 1903 silent film adaptation of the story is also included with commentary by a British Film Institute scholar. Rounding things out are a vintage featurette from 1966 about Ravi Shankar's scoring sessions and an on-set photo gallery.