Lou Bunin was a prominent puppeteer, an artist, and pioneer of stop-motion animation in the latter half of the twentieth century. While working as a mural artist under Diego Rivera in Mexico City in 1926, Bunin created political puppet shows using marionettes including a production of Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape. Photographer Tina Modotti took many pictures of Bunin and his puppets, incluing her renowned work, "The Hands of the Puppeteer." On his return to the United States, Bunin created animated three-dimensional puppets to appear in the 1929 World's Fair in New York. His political stop-motion satire, "Bury the Axis," is the first known stop-motion animated production in the United States. Later Bunin landed a job with MGM studios where he created the stop-motion Prologue to the famed film, Ziegfeld Follies (MGM). He was subsequently fired as a casualty of McCarthyism. Bunin went on to create a feature length stop-motion animation film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland in 1949, starring Carol Marsh as a live-action Alice. A lawsuit from Walt Disney prevented it from being widely released in the U.S., so that it would not compete with Disney's forthcoming 1951 animated version.
Time Magazine article July 16th 1951:
Walt Disney's animated color film Alice in Wonderland (RKO Radio) is booked into Manhattan's Criterion Theater for its
U.S. premiere Aug. i. Six days earner, Producer Lou Bunin's French-made puppet & live-action Alice in Wonderland (released through Souvaine Selective Pictures) is slated for its U.S. opening in two of Exhibitor Harry Brandt's Manhattan movie houses. Last week, after months of ominous rumbling, Disney and Souvaine entered into battle. Claimed Disney: Bunin's "inferior" Alice would deceive the public into going to see the wrong picture, thus spoiling his nice new Alice's box-office take. In good Tweedledee fashion, Souvaine retorted: Contrariwise!
The battle was joined in Manhattan's district court, where Disney and RKO sued Souvaine and Brandt to restrain them from unveiling Bunin's Alice and cashing in on the Disney picture. Souvaine countered that it was "happy" Disney had finally seen fit to bring the squabble to a head. Said President Henry Souvaine (TIME, March 12): "The time has arrived for a properly constituted court of law to determine the legality or illegality of Mr. Disney's efforts over many years to destroy Mr. Bunin's property."
The right to Lewis Carroll's 1865 classic have fallen into the public domain, making Alice fair game for any moviemaker. Disney announced his project in 1945, at about the time Bunin had the same idea. Bunin moved faster and held a 1949 premiere in Paris. In the U.S., Disney had gained an edge in 1938 by registering his Alice in Wonderland title with the Motion Picture Association of America.
If Disney wins the court battle, Bunin's $1,500,000 Alice will be barred from U.S. exhibition until 18 months after Disney releases his $3,000,000 Alice. To Disney's contention that Bunin's competing Alice would cause "irreparable damage" to him and RKO, the Souvaine outfit blandly replied: "Actually, it is healthy for the industry to have two entirely different conceptions of a beloved classic appearing at approximately the same time . . . We believe that the public is entitled to see either one or both. We doubt that the name 'Alice in Wonderland' is any better known now than it was before Mr. Disney began his expensive exploitation job."
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