Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997)
Cinderella [1950]

Tagged: Film.

US Animated Movie (1950). Disney. Production supervisor: Ben Sharpsteen. Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske. Special processes: Ub Iwerks. Based on the version by Charles Perrault. Voice actors: Eleanor Audley (Lady Tremaine), Lucille Bliss (Anastasia), Verna Felton (Fairy Godmother), June Foray (Lucifer), Betty Lou Gerson (Narrator), James Macdonald (Gus, Jaq, Bruno), William Phipps (Prince Charming), Luis Van Rooten (King, Grand Duke), Rhoda Williams (Drizella), Ilene Woods (Cinderella). 74 mins. Colour.

This reasonably faithful comic adaptation – with an added subplot involving a cat and cute mice – is one of the great classic Animated Movies, partly through its own merits but perhaps more because of its historical status. In the years since Bambi (1942), Disney had released no full-length animated features, instead concentrating its animation efforts on a rather drab set of compilation movies, which were cheap to make. Cinderella was thus an emphatic return to form, and its release had almost the same impact as had that of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, back in 1937.

Other movies using the essentials of the tale are a mixed batch. In Cinderella Jones (1946), a comedy, a girl seeks to wed an intelligent man so that she may claim her inheritance. The musical Cinderfella (1960) has a male Cinders and was designed as a showcase for Jerry Lewis. Cinderella (1964) is a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. C'era una Volta (vt Cinderella – Italian Style; vt More Than a Miracle; 1967) is a surreal comic version. Cinderella Liberty (1974) sees a sailor falling in love with a prostitute; the reference is to US naval slang for shore-leave, which ends at midnight. The Slipper and the Rose (1976) is a long, ambitious, sumptuous but wooden musical version (songs by Robert and Richard Sherman). The Other Cinderella (vt Cinderella; 1977) is a soft-porn musical version in which a prince seeks the "perfect fit". Cinderella 2000 (vt Sex 2000; 1977), set in the far future, is a sex-oriented sf adaptation. There are also countless "moral-tale" Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s which use the theme without acknowledgement. [JG]