Cinderella (1950)
Cinderella
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This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 2018.
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.png) A dream is a wish your heart makes.
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Cinderella is a 1950 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney and originally released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the fairy tale Cinderella by Charles Perrault, it is the twelfth Disney animated feature film. Directing credits go to Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, and Wilfred Jackson.
At the time, Walt Disney Productions had suffered from losing connections to the European film markets due to the outbreak of World War II, enduring some box office bombs like Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), and Bambi (1942), all of which would later become more successful with several re-releases in theaters and on home video. At the time, however, the studio was over $4 million in debt and was on the verge of bankruptcy. Walt Disney and his animators turned back to feature film production in 1948 after producing a string of package films with the idea of adapting Charles Perrault's Cendrillon into a motion picture. It is the first Disney film in which all of Disney's Nine Old Men worked together as directing animators.
Summary
With a wicked stepmother (Eleanor Audley) and two jealous stepsisters named Drizella and Anastasia (not to be confused with the 1997 Don Bluth film and its main character) (Rhoda Williams and Lucille Bliss respectively) who keep her enslaved and in rags, Cinderella (Ilene Woods) stands no chance of attending the royal ball. When her fairy godmother (Verna Felton) appears and magically transforms her reality into a dream come true, Cinderella enchants the handsome Prince Charming at the ball, but must face the wrath of her enraged stepmother and sisters when the spell wears off at midnight.
Why Cinderella Is One Of A Kind Princess
- Like Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, this is the second time that Disney made an another princess movie.
- Smooth, wonderfully done animation that's very whimsical and charmingly hand-drawn by members of Disney's Nine Old Men.
- It marked Disney's return to doing single-narrative animated feature length films for the first time since Bambi, after resorting to inexpensive package films throughout the 1940s decade (due to WWII) which started from Saludos Amigos and ended with The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.
- It captures the magical tone to the source material with some it’s own kid-friendly adjustments.
- It has creatively well-done vocal performances from the likes of Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, and Verna Felton.
- It has very excellent character and story development from Cinderella and the Prince.
- Cinderella is a very sympathetic main character, as she has to put up with her stepmother and step-siblings but she also stays strong, brave, and smart. This goes to show that she is technically the first independent Disney Princess as she does take initiative to help her escape from her stepfamily, setting the stage for the later Disney Princesses that came after, although Aurora from Sleeping Beauty was a large step back in terms of feminism.
- Cinderella’s mice and bird friends are adorable and likable side-characters, especially for Gus.
- A hilarious running gag of Lucifer trying to eat the mice and failing.
- The second sequel, Cinderella III: A Twist In Time, is just as good, if not better.
- Many memorable songs, such as Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo and A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes.
- To fill the sentence in WIR#1, this film's success saved the Disney studio from entering bankruptcy after being debt-ridden for one full decade throughout the 1940s. In fact, at the time it was Disney's most successful animated feature film since both Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Dumbo.
- The most well known scene when the Duke fitting Cinderella's slipper, and guest what? It fits!
- To make things better, A very heartwarming ending where Cinderella and the Prince live happily ever after, despite the ending being rushed.
Bad Qualities
- It still has the major plot hole where one of Cindy's slippers is still present after the spell wears off.
- Also, there were other women at the ball besides Cinderella and her step-family, so the prince could have meet another princess who has the same foot size as Cinderella as well as the same glass slipper, and not recognize Cinderella herself.
- Like Snow White's prince, Prince Charming is a not only a bland love interest, he barely gets any lines of screen-time. It wouldn't be until Prince Phillip (despite having limited lines) from Sleeping Beauty would be become the first proactive love interest with more screen time and have an interesting personality.
- Lady Tremaine can come across as a very unlikable villain.
Reception
The film became a critical success garnering the best reception for a Disney animated film since Dumbo. In a personal letter to Walt Disney, director Michael Curtiz hailed the film as the "masterpiece of all pictures you have done". Producer Hal Wallis declared, "If this is not your best, it is very close to the top." Mae Tinee, reviewing for The Chicago Tribune, remarked "The film not only is handsome, with imaginative art and glowing colors to bedeck the old fairy tale, but it also is told in a gentle fashion, without the lurid villains which sometimes give little lots nightmares. It is enhanced by the sudden, piquant touches of humor and the music which appeal to old and young".
Contemporary reviews have remained positive. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film three out of four stars. Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader wrote the film "shows Disney at the tail end of his best period, when his backgrounds were still luminous with depth and detail and his incidental characters still had range and bite". Rotten Tomatoes reported the film received an approval rating of 97% based on 31 reviews with an average score of 7.81/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The rich colors, sweet songs, adorable mice and endearing (if suffering) heroine make Cinderella a nostalgically lovely charmer".
Videos
External Links
Cinderella at the Internet Movie Database
Cinderella on Rotten Tomatoes
Cinderella (1950) on Metacritic
Cinderella (1950) on Letterboxd