12 – “Cendrillon”

Cinderella

Premiere: March 4, 1950

Budget: $2,900,000

Box Office: $85,000,000 (Original Release)

Released by: RKO Radio Pictures

Nominations/Awards:

• Academy Award – Best Sound (Nominee)
• Academy Award – Best Original Music Score (Nominee)
• Academy Award – Best Song “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” (Nominee)

Running Time: 74 Minutes (1 hr, 14 min)

“Greatest Since Snow White!”

Welcome back to single-narrative features!

It’s been a long six weeks, with package film after package film and no end in sight! But imagine how much longer it felt for Walt and his studio. They were making those things for almost a decade!

The war was finally over and, like the rest of the country, the studio was trying to find normalcy again. What didn’t help matters was that the studio was in a very precarious financial position. Sure, the package films and the propaganda kept the lights on, but the studio still had debts that threatened its very existence. Especially now that the government money had dried up.

This time, there was no room for error. The next film had to be a hit. Could Walt and his people do it again? Or had they lost it all in cheap compilations?

The solution was simple: return to form.

“A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”

Everybody at the studio knew that this was a make it or break it film. So a lot of care and attention was put into it. They also looked for ways to save money, in order to minimize the impact, should it fail. The most prominent of these is the fact that they decided to film the entire movie with live actors on film. They used minimal props and wardrobe to do this and it made the drawing process easier, since the motion had already been created for them. Mind you, this was not rotoscoped (meaning tracing over the live-action film). The live-action film was used more for reference.

However, just because Walt wanted to make this movie cheaper doesn’t mean that they didn’t innovate or advance the medium of film in a significant way. This was one of the earliest uses of a sound recording process known as double tracking. For the song “Sing Sweet Nightingale,” Ilene Woods, the voice actress for Cinderella, recorded her own backup harmonies. The tracks were put together and the scene sounds like Cinderella singing all the parts.

The only parts of the film not made first in live-action was the animation of the animal characters. The mice, Lucifer the cat, and the others were animated in a simpler style and completely liberated from the live-action model.

Mary Blair completed much of the concept art, including character designs. Her influence is felt throughout the film, and it will lead to her work in other animated films and eventually Disneyland.

“So This is Love”

The film was released on March 4, 1950.

Critics absolutely loved Cinderella. From a budget of 2.9 million dollars, it grossed $85,000,000 in its initial release. The gamble on Walt’s part had paid off. This film singlehandedly kept the studio working through the 1950s and laid the foundations for the studio to work in live-action, television, and Disneyland.

A first for a Disney movie, the soundtrack was completely owned and copyrighted by the studio. At the time, film soundtracks were not considered marketable so they were often sold to established record labels for production into sheet music. Walt and Roy established the Walt Disney Music Company to hold the copyright and publish the music. The brothers had the foresight to hold on to those rights, especially since covers of “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” sold very well. This would also test the waters for the future Buena Vista Distribution company that would be created to distribute the films directly to theatres, thereby getting rid of RKO Radio Pictures as the middleman.

Cinderella spawned two direct-to-video sequels, considered some of the better such sequels. It also would be featured in the Disney/Square Enix video game series Kingdom Hearts.

Keep-a busy Cinderelly!

It’s great to have just one story instead of seven!

This is a straightforward adaptation of the French fairy tale “Cendrillon” by Charles Perrault. There’s a young woman who lives with her cruel stepmother and two stepsisters. After the passing of her father, the true personality of the stepmother appears. Cinderella is forced to clean and cook and serve Lady Tremaine and her two daughters. Meanwhile, the King is impatient at his son’s resistance to marriage. He arranges for a grand ball to be attended by every eligible maid in the kingdom in the hopes that his son chooses one to marry.

Lady Tremaine allows Cinderella to go with the condition that she finish her chores and find a suitable dress to wear. Her helpful mice friends spend the afternoon scavenging for scrap material to alter one of Cinderella’s birth-mother’s old dresses. She is excited to go to the ball, but when Lady Tremaine and her daughters see that the dress is made from old scraps of their own finer clothes, they cruelly tear the dress apart. Humiliated and ashamed, Cinderella goes to the yard to cry when her Fairy Godmother arrives to help. She casts a spell to give her a fine dress, carriage, and horses to take to the ball and enjoy herself. The catch is that everything disappears and she reverts to being a simple maid at the stroke of midnight.

At the ball, Cinderella meets and dances with the prince, unbeknownst to her. They fall in love but as midnight strikes, Cinderella leaves without revealing her name and leaving behind a glass slipper as a clue. The king issues a proclamation for his Grand Duke to go all over the kingdom and try the slipper on every maid’s foot in order to find the mysterious girl. At Cinderella’s house, the Duke arrives and once Lady Tremaine connects the dots, she locks Cinderella away. The two stepsisters try on the slipper but their feet are too big. It isn’t until the mice free Cinderella that she comes down to try the slipper. Lady Tremaine trips the footman and the slipper falls and shatters. However, Cinderella is able to produce the other glass slipper to prove she was in fact the one they were looking for. Cinderella marries the prince and they live happily ever after.

“Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo!”

This movie is definitely a fine return to form for Walt and the studio. It is a good adaptation of the source fairy tale yet it addresses possible plot holes very elegantly. Overall, I really liked this movie and it is quite nice to be back to films with a single story. But now, let’s break it down, shall we?

I’ll talk about the art first. The animation on this picture is good. Very good. Not the absolute best, I would still point to Pinocchio and Bambi for finer examples, but miles above and beyond the package films. More importantly, better than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This is important because that is Cinderella‘s closest relative in the cannon. Even with the cost cutting and the abandonment of the finely detailed, exquisite animation of the prewar films, this one does hold its own quite well. They’ve also gotten a lot better at lip-synching, something that had been a problem early on int he cannon is not noticeable much here.

The music is memorable, but not entirely stellar. While I was intrigued by the early use of double tracked vocals in “Sing Sweet Nightingale,” the song itself was dull and kind of boring. I did enjoy the dark reprise of “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” when Cinderella is crying right after her dress was torn to shreds. The reprise maintains the optimistic, positive lyrics, but the music takes a solemn, depressing mood. The contrast is interesting and is used to great effect.

Now for the story. The characters are interesting and the film addresses plot holes evident in the source material, the most important being the fact that the slipper would very likely fit multiple girls. The king accounts for that by more or less saying that he doesn’t care! He just wants his son married.

Finally the characters. Each are important in their own way, but I’ll be brief.

The breakout stars of this film are the mice Jaq and Gus. Jaq is the leader of the mice and Gus is the lovable newcomer buffoon. Their antics with the cat Lucifer and the dog Bruno are great and really funny plus they actually contribute to the story in a meaningful way by helping Cinderella escape from her room. The step sisters fall in a similar vein in that you can’t ignore them, but they’re so insufferable that they’re real easy to hate. (However Anastasia begins a path to redemption in the direct-to-video sequels and becomes more sympathetic.)

Lady Tremaine is a very cruel and abusive step mother. I wouldn’t rank her high on the list of greatest villains, however. She’s mean, but not as threatening as, say Mother Gothel from Tangled (#50). A key scene is the look on her face when her daughters are tearing apart Cinderella’s first ball gown. The look of disdain and hatred is a bit chilling.

The Grand Duke is the straight man to the king, and a good one too. He is also the one to dismiss all the trappings of fairy tales, like love at first sight, and is the one that raises the absurdity of using the slipper to find the right girl.

The King is silly, there’s certainly a cruel side to him too, like when he chases the Duke around and threatens to chop off his head. He’s also part of a long list of overbearing Disney dads. A list that includes King Triton and the Sultan from Aladdin (#31).

A quick side note on the Prince. He’s interesting, even though he doesn’t get to say much, because if you stop and think, his story is essentially that of Jasmine from Aladdin but gender-flipped. He has an overbearing king-father that is forcing him to marry. He parades potential suitors in front of him, he also wants to secure the lineage. Meanwhile the Prince isn’t ready to marry yet and the one he does fall in love with is mysterious and their real identity is revealed due to the machinations of the villain. Just something to think about.

Then there’s Cinderelly herself. Her personality is much better than Snow White’s. Her voice is also more soothing and pleasant. Not to mention she is much more charming. Cinderella spends the majority of the film in what amounts to slavery but she maintains a cheerful disposition about her situation. My complaint with her is that she spends her time singing about dreaming and believing in something more and yet she is not proactive in helping her current situation. She would have every right to claim some sort of equality since she is the direct blood relative of her father, who owned the estate. Instead she just takes it when she clearly doesn’t want to be in that situation anymore. She’s a better example of a princess than Snow White, but not the best yet.

I have only one question about the Fairy Godmother. Where has she been all this time? I’m sure Cinderella’s step family has humiliated her and abused her worse before, why show up only when there’s a dance involved?

Like I said earlier, I enjoyed this one. It could be also because I’m tired of package films, but this was definitely a return to the Disney way we’re used to, and that’s a good thing.

A Final Note

When the Fairy Godmother casts her spells, the twinkly lights so enchanted Walt that he requested more to be added. This spectacular particle animation then became known as “Disney Dust” and would be refined and used in various productions.

That’s it for Cinderella. Post your comments below!

Next up is Alice in Wonderland! See you next time!