A Walt Disney classic that can sill enchant and entertain

Rating: 7/10 (16 December 2016)

A Walt Disney classic that – while not as groundbreaking or charming as the company's first full-featured animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) – can still enchant and entertain, especially young (and still young at heart) girls. The movie features an Academy Award nominated Score (and Sound) including "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo", which also received an Oscar nomination, "So This Is Love", "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes", and the title song, which in part is sung by Marni Nixon. Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske, the story was adapted by Bill Peet, Erdman Penner, Ted Sears, Winston Hibler, Homer Brightman, Harry Reeves, Kenneth Anderson, and Joe Rinaldi from the original classic by Charles Perrault. The film was originally distributed by RKO Pictures.
After the early death of her loving father, Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods) is made to work as a maid and cook for her stepmother Lady Tremaine (Eleanor Audley) and two stepsisters Drizella (Rhoda Williams) and Anastasia (Lucille Bliss), all three of whom are jealous of her charm and beauty. Having been happily raised by her widowed father, who married widow Tremaine out of concern that his daughter needed a mother, Cinderella continues to keep an optimistic outlook and perform her daily duties cheerfully despite her circumstances, befriending the estate's animals: mice Jaq and Gus, dog Bruno (all voiced by James Macdonald), horse Major and various bluebirds (Marion Darlington). The Tremaine's aptly named cat Lucifer (June Foray) terrorizes the mice and causes Cinderella extra work every chance he gets.
Meanwhile the King (Luis Van Rooten), who wants grandchildren, decides to welcome home his son Prince Charming (William Phipps; Mike Douglas, singing) with a Royal Ball to which he'll invite all the comely maidens, hoping one will capture his son's heart. After grudgingly giving Cinderella permission to attend, Tremaine and her daughters all but ruin her chances to impress, forcing her to do extra chores then ripping her (animal assembled) dress and beads apart just as it's time to go. This act of cruelty and mean- spiritedness finally causes Cinderella to burst into tears and run into the garden, frustrated that she'll miss the dance and perhaps the only opportunity to escape her situation.
At this point, Cinderella is visited by her Fairy Godmother (Verna Felton), who magically transforms various items and animals into the coach, driver, footman and horses she needs to attend the Ball; she is then adorned in a sparkling new dress complete with glass slippers. Her Fairy Godmother then warns her that "on the stroke of midnight" the spell will be broken (and everything will return to as it was). Of course, this is more than Cinderella could ever have hoped for, and she proceeds to the Ball where she and Prince Charming share a dance, "falling in love" just as the clock begins to toll midnight. She dashes from the Ball to her carriage which rushes homeward before turning back into a pumpkin. However, she'd left behind one slipper.
The King decrees that the owner of the glass slipper must be found, and orders his Grand Duke to visit every house in the kingdom to find her. Seeing how utterly happy her stepdaughter is behaving, Lady Tremaine correctly surmises the truth and has Cinderella locked her attic bedroom while the Grand Duke is visiting their estate. While the Grand Duke tries in vain to force the slipper on Drizella's and Anastasia's big feet, the animals conspire to help their friend, outsmarting and outmaneuvering Lady Tremaine and Lucifer to give Cinderella a chance to try on the slipper. When Tremaine trips the footman, the slipper shatters on the floor, but Cinderella then produces its mate. After it is revealed that "the shoe fits" her perfectly, Cinderella is whisked away to the castle where she and the Prince live happily ever after.