Cinderella review

Rating: 7/10 (4 February 2020)

Welcome to the fifties, everyone! Disney really kicked off the new decade in style with their twelfth feature film, Cinderella, which marked their return to the classic fairy tale narrative that brought them so much success with Snow White. It also marked the beginning of a new era, known to most animation fans as the Silver Era, because it was a return to the kind of quality filmmaking not seen at Disney since before the war. The story of Cinderella is one just about everybody knows and it's been adapted dozens, maybe hundreds of times over the years, in a huge variety of different mediums.
On the stage, it has been done as a ballet, with the most famous including the Boris Fitinhof-Schell production of 1893, the Strauss II/Josef Bayer production of 1901 and the best-known one, the Prokofiev ballet of 1945. It has also been turned into operas, created by the likes of Nicolas Isouard (1810), Jules Massenet (1899), Pauline Viardot (1904), Jorge Peña Hen (1966, a rare opera with a cast made up of children) and Rossini's famous one from 1817, said to be written in just three weeks! Then there are the plays and pantomimes - the story was a staple of London's Drury Lane for years in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1957 version proved popular enough to garner remakes in 1966, 1997 and 2013. Louis Gottschalk created an early musical from the story called Cinderella and the Prince, or The Castle of Heart's Desire (1904), and Sondheim and Lapine featured the heroine in their fairy-tale mashup Into the Woods in 1987.
Naturally, such a popular tale also made great material for filmmakers once the new art of cinema arrived. Some of the earliest filmed versions of Cinderella were done by pioneers like George Albert Smith (1898) and Georges Méliès (three versions from 1899, 1909 {presumed lost} and 1912), with a popular 1914 version by James Kirkwood, Sr., featuring "America's Sweetheart," the silent star Mary Pickford. The story was often used as a vehicle to promote aspiring young actresses, with the plot being tailored to their talents - Deanna Durbin sang her way through First Love in 1939, while Leslie Caron danced up a storm in The Glass Slipper (1955). Even the Sherman brothers, by then Disney stalwarts, had a crack at it with their 1976 film The Slipper and the Rose.
And of course, amongst these filmed versions there were a plethora of animated Cinderellas. The Fleischer Studio debuted the rather confusing Poor Cinderella in 1934 with Betty Boop in the title role, and Warner Bros. star Tex Avery created two versions of his own in 1938 and 1945. Rankin/Bass included the story in their 1972 Festival of Family Classics, and Janet Perlman added a polar twist with her 1981 short The Tender Tale of Cinderella Penguin. There have even been anime versions, such as Hiroshi Sasagawa's 1996 production Cinderella Monogatari.
Opening titles
Perhaps the most significant to this review, though, is a 1922 version by none other than Walt himself. Cinderella was the story of choice for young Walt's final "Laugh-O-gram" story, just before his early studio came to a close, but the idea of using it in a longer film clearly never left him. Skipping ahead to the 1940s, Walt was trying to choose between Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp for his return to feature films after the war. After some arguments with his brother Roy (who didn't think the two literary tales in the group would work at all), he finally settled on the classic fairy tale of Cinderella as the more likely chance of success. It was a safe, reliable choice based on experience... and it really paid off.
The earliest story treatment (from Dana Coty and Bianca Majolie) appeared in January 1940, with further development continuing throughout the decade, but it wasn't until the final years of the forties that they were able to kick production into high gear. Ultimately, it would cost about three million dollars to make, making this their most expensive production since Bambi, so they needed it to turn a profit - if it didn't, the studio would probably be closed.
Of course, we all know how things turned out. The film was the biggest hit they'd had in years, finally making the studio enough money to allow them to crawl out of the creative slump they'd been stuck in and start exploring new possibilities. Cinderella has rightfully become known as a classic - and now it's time to explore how it garnered this reputation.
Characters and Vocal Performances
Cinderella was the first female lead in a Disney film since Snow White and is also the second Disney Princess. Much like Snow, she is an orphan, having lost her father in the prologue and her mother, presumably, in childbirth. It's interesting that stories about orphans triumphing against the odds are so common - think Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, Harry Potter, Batman, not to mention loads of other Disney characters. Some critics have noted that this lack of parents forces the characters to define themselves earlier; nobody ever sets out on a dangerous quest from a safe, loving home! It is at least an improvement here that Cinderella's parents are mentioned - we even get to see her father briefly (by the time we get to Aurora, the parents actually have lines!).
The thing that really sets Cinderella apart from Snow White or Aurora, though, is that she has so much more personality. We've all heard the criticism aimed at the original trio of princesses for being too "passive," but when you watch this film, you realise that it just doesn't apply to Cinderella. As kind and friendly as she is, she's also got a great sass and sarcasm to her at times, making some rather snarky comments about her stepfamily when she's with her animals friends. Yet she's also remarkably chipper for someone so oppressed; it makes you root for her, to see her demonstrating such inner strength. She's portrayed in a realistic, relatable manner - at the start of the film, we see that she doesn't like getting out of bed in the morning (a little trait she shares with Anna and Tiana), and she can be sharp at times, usually with Lucifer - I love the moment when she snaps "Lucifer! Come here!" at the insolent feline when he won't come to breakfast. In an important scene, after delivering the news of the Royal Ball, she also sticks up for herself, making a simple and logical case for why she should be allowed to go: "After all, I'm still a member of the family!" Can you imagine Snow White talking back to the evil Queen?
Cinderella in the morning
She's not perfect, though; at the ball, after having had a lovely time with the only guy at the party, she tells him "I haven't met the Prince!" Really, Cinders? She's a little slow on the uptake there, I mean who on earth did she think this bloke in the epaulettes was? There's also a scene near the film's climax where she really lets the cat out of the bag after hearing that the prince intends to marry the girl who lost her shoe (which also tells her who the guy she danced with was). Her face at that moment is a picture; you want to give her a shake before her stepmother catches on! Striking the right balance between sweet and salty wasn't easy and the filmmakers cut a few of Cindy's scenes, including one where she would eavesdrop on her family and chuckle rather spitefully as they gossip about the "mystery girl" who danced with the prince, because such scenes made her seem too mean-spirited. Cinderella, at heart, is a classic Disney role model, always striving to be good and kind to those around her even in the most challenging circumstances. Critic Robin Allan stated that her saw her as an example of "post-war femininity" and marked a return to the "pre-war domestic subservience" role of women, but I disagree with ideas like this: Cinderella is simply not passive! Unlike Snow White or Aurora, she actually takes steps to fix her situation (with a little help from the Fairy Godmother, admittedly) and makes full use of the opportunities that present themselves. Snow White is sweet and all, but I think Cinderella is my favourite of these early heroines.