Alice in Wonderland (1933)

The 1933 version of Alice in Wonderland is on TCM right now. I've always wanted to see it. This movie was made at a time when Paramount Pictures was nearing bankruptcy in the early 1930s, and they desperately needed a big hit. Well, in a last ditch effort to save the studio, they made this big-budget all-star live-action version of Alice in Wonderland, and supposedly all the big Paramount contract players had to be in it whether they liked it or not. Well, it was a flop, and a very expensive one at that, and Paramount was broke, so they thought it was all over for them. But just then, a movie a relatively new contractee named Mae West made (She Done Him Wrong, 1933) became a mega-hit and saved the studio. The studio brass certainly were surprised, but they didn't complain, and they rushed her next picture into production (I'm No Angel, also 1933), and that really raked it in as well, securing the studio's future. And so Paramount exists to this day thanks to Mae West. (But no thanks to Alice in Wonderland.)