Cinderella is a 1950 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney and based on the fairy tale "Cendrillon" by Charles Perrault. Twelfth in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film had a limited release on February 15, 1950 by RKO Radio Pictures. Directing credits go to Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske and Wilfred Jackson. Songs were written by Mack David, Jerry Livingston, and Al Hoffman. Songs in the film include "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes", "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo", "So This Is Love", "Sing Sweet Nightingale", "The Work Song", and "Cinderella."
The film received three Academy Award nominations for Best Sound, Original Music Score and Best Song for "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo".
Plot
Cinderella is the much-loved only child of a widowed aristocrat. After deciding that his beloved daughter needs a mother's care, Cinderella's father marries a proud and haughty woman named Lady Tremaine. She too has been married before, and has two daughters by her first marriage, Anastasia and Drizella, who are just Cinderella's age. Plain and socially awkward, these Ugly Stepsisters are bitterly envious of the beautiful and charming Cinderella.
The family lives in happiness for several years, until the untimely death of Cinderella's father. After that, Lady Tremaine's true nature is revealed, and she and her spiteful daughters take over the estate, and begin to abuse and maltreat Cinderella, envious of her beauty. She is forced into housekeeping responsibilities and made to wait upon her jealous stepsisters like a maid. As Cinderella blossoms into a beautiful young woman who is kind despite her hardships, she befriends the animals living in the barn, including Bruno the Bloodhound, Major the horse, and many of the mice and birds who live in and around the chateau. Cinderella finds a mouse inside a trap, releases him, and names him Octavius, "Gus" for short. She is also friends with a mouse named Jacques ("Jaq" for short), the leader of a mouse-pack.
At the royal palace, the King is angry that his son does not intend to marry. The King is determined to see grandchildren, so he and the Duke organize a ball for Prince Charming in an effort to cause his son to fall in love and marry, with every eligible maiden in the kingdom ordered to attend.
When the invitation to the ball arrives, Cinderella asks her stepmother if she can attend. Her stepmother tells her she may go to the ball, if she finishes her work and can find a suitable gown. To consume her time, her stepmother sets Cinderella with a mountain of chores. Her mouse friends Gus and Jaq use Cinderella's stepsister's discarded sash and beads to fix an old gown that belonged to Cinderella's mother. When Cinderella wears her dress before the ball, Lady Tremaine points out her daughters' beads and sash, and the jealous sisters physically assault her, tearing the gown to shreds, leaving Cinderella to run to the back of the garden in tears while her stepfamily attends the royal ball without her.
Cinderella's Fairy Godmother appears to her in the garden, and transforms her appearance for the ball. She transforms the mice into horses, Bruno the dog into a footman, Major the horse into a coachman, a pumpkin into the carriage, and transforms her torn dress into a beautiful blue dress with glass slippers. Cinderella departs for the ball after the godmother warns her that the spell will expire at the stroke of midnight.
At the ball, the Prince rejects every girl, until he sees Cinderella, with whom he is immediately smitten. The two dance throughout the castle grounds until the clock starts to chime midnight. Cinderella flees to her coach and away from the castle, accidentally dropping one of her glass slippers. After the Duke tells the King of the disaster, they plan to find Cinderella with the slipper they found during her escape.
The next morning, a royal proclamation is issued, stating the Grand Duke will visit every house in the kingdom to find the girl who fits the glass slipper, so that she can be married to the Prince. When this news reaches Cinderella's household, her stepmother and stepsisters begin hurriedly preparing for the Grand Duke's arrival. Cinderella, overhearing, begins dreamily humming the song from the palace ball the previous night. Realizing Cinderella was the girl who danced with the Prince, her stepmother follows Cinderella up to her attic bedroom and locks her inside.
When the Grand Duke arrives, the mice steal the key to Cinderella's room from Lady Tremaine's pocket and laboriously drag the key up the stairs to her room, only barely managing to free her after a fight with the Stepmother's cat Lucifer, in which Bruno comes to their rescue and scares the evil cat out of the house. Meanwhile, Anastasia tries on the slipper, but her foot is too big. Drizella tries on the slipper, and finds her foot is also too large. As the Duke prepares to leave, Cinderella appears at the top of the stairs, asking to try on the slipper. Knowing that the slipper will fit and that Cinderella will marry the Prince, her stepmother insists she's just a servant girl. The Grand Duke sharply reminds her that every maiden is to try on the slipper. As the footman bring the slipper to Cinderella, her stepmother trips him, causing the slipper to drop and shatter on the floor. Cinderella then reveals she has the other glass slipper. Delighted at this indisputable proof of the maiden's identity, the Duke slides the slipper onto her foot, which fits perfectly. The two agree to keep the broken slipper a secret.
At the wedding, Cinderella and the Prince descend the church's staircase, surrounded by confetti tossed by the King and the Grand Duke. Cinderella loses a slipper and retrieves it with the aid of the King. As the film ends on a scene of the two newly-weds kissing, the narrator concludes "...and they lived happily ever after".
Cast
Production
Made on the cusp between the classic "golden age" Disney animations of the 1930s and 1940s and the less critically acclaimed productions of the 1950s, Cinderella is representative of both eras.
Cinderella was the first full-bodied feature produced by the studio since Bambi in 1942; World War II and low box office returns had forced Walt Disney to produce a series of inexpensive package films such as Make Mine Music and Fun and Fancy Free for the 1940s. Rotoscoping was used extensively to keep animation costs down. According to Laryn Dowel, one of the directing animators of the film, roughly 90% of the movie was done in live action model before animation, using basic sets as references for actors and animators alike.
Both Helene Stanley (Cinderella's live action model) and Ilene Woods (Cinderella's voice actor, selected from 400 other candidates) heavily influenced Cinderellas' styling and mannerisms. Actress Helene Stanley was the live-action model for the title role and would be so again for Sleeping Beauty and Anita Radcliff in One Hundred and One Dalmatians.[1] Mike Douglas was the Prince's singing voice while William Phipps acted the part.
In earlier drafts of the screenplay, the Prince originally played a larger role and had more character development than what he ultimately received in the final version of the film. In one abandoned opening, the Prince was shown hunting a deer, but at the end of the sequence, it was to be revealed that the Prince and the deer were actually friends playing a game. In an abandoned alternate ending, after the Duke discovered Cinderella's identity, she was shown being brought to the castle to be reintroduced to the Prince, who is surprised to learn that Cinderella was actually a modest servant girl instead of the princess he thought she was, but the Prince's feelings for her were too strong to be bothered by this and he embraced her; the Fairy Godmother was to reappear and restore Cinderella's ball gown for the closing shot. Walt Disney himself reportedly cut the alternate ending because he felt it was overlong and did not give the audience its "pay off".
Other deleted material included an abandoned song that was tentatively titled the "Cinderella Worksong", which was part of a fantasy sequence that was set to take place after Lady Tremaine told Cinderella that she could only attend the ball if she finished her chores and found a suitable dress. In this abandoned sequence, Cinderella imagined herself multiplying into an army of maids in order to deal with her massive workload, all the while pondering what the ball itself would be like; the sequence was cut, but the title was applied to the song the mice sing when they work on Cinderella's dress. Additionally, there was a scene that took place after the ball in which Cinderella was seen returning to her home and eavesdropped on her step family, who were ranting about the mystery girl at the ball, and Cinderella was shown to be amused by this because they were talking about her without realizing it. Walt Disney reportedly cut the scene because he thought it made Cinderella look "spiteful" and felt the audience would lose sympathy for her.
For the first time, Walt turned to Tin Pan Alley song writers to write the songs. The music of Tin Pan Alley would later become a recurring theme in Disney animation. Cinderella was the first Disney film to have its songs published and copyrighted by the newly created Walt Disney Music Company. Before movie soundtracks became marketable, movie songs had little residual value to the film studio that owned them and were often sold off to established music companies for sheet music publication.
"Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" became a hit single four times, with notable versions by Perry Como and the Fontane Sisters. Ilene Woods beat exactly 309 girls for the part of Cinderella, after some demo recordings of her singing a few of the film's songs were presented to Walt Disney. However, she had no idea she was auditioning for the part until Disney contacted her; she initially made the recordings for a few friends who sent them to Disney without her knowledge. Reportedly, Disney thought Woods had the right "fairy tale" tone to her voice.
Interestingly, almost 30 years before "Cinderella" was made into a feature-length animated film, Walt Disney already made a short film of it as the last of the Laugh-O-Gram series, as a Roaring 20's version. This short is included as an extra on the Cinderella Platinum Edition DVD.
Music
On Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic, this includes "The Work Song" and "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" on the first disc, "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" and "So This Is Love" on the second, and "Oh, Sing Sweet Nightingale" on the fourth. On Disney's Greatest Hits, "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" is included on the first volume and "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" on the second.
Reception
The profits from the film's release, with the additional profits from record sales, music publishing, publications and other merchandise gave Disney the cash flow to finance a slate of productions (animated and live action), establish his own distribution company, enter television production and begin building Disneyland during the decade.
Walt Disney had not had a huge hit since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The production of this film was regarded as a major gamble on his part. At a cost of nearly $3,000,000, Disney insiders claimed that if this movie had failed at the box office, then Disney studio would have closed (given that the studio was already heavily in debt).[2] The film was a huge box office success and allowed Disney to carry on producing films throughout the 1950s.[3]
Cinderella has been re-released theatrically in 1957, 1965, 1973, 1981, and 1987. It was released on VHS video and laserdisc in 1988 as part of the Walt Disney Classics collection, becoming the first video to feature the "Sorcerer Mickey" Classics logo before the film. This release also had a promotion with a free lithograph reproduction for those who pre-ordered the video before its release date. In 1995, the film received a Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection video issue with a 1950s Buena Vista logo added. Disney then restored and remastered the movie for its October 4, 2005 release as the sixth installment of the Walt Disney Platinum Editions series. According to Studio Briefing, Disney sold 3.2 million copies in its first week and earned over $64 million in sales.[4] The Platinum Edition DVD of the original movie along with its sequels went on moratorium on January 31, 2008.
Awards
In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "10 Top 10"— the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Cinderella was acknowledged as the 9th greatest film in the animation genre.[5][6]
Sequels and other media
- A direct-to-video sequel Cinderella II: Dreams Come True was released on February 26, 2002.
- A second direct-to-video sequel Cinderella III: A Twist in Time was released on February 6, 2007.
- Cinderella will be featured in an upcoming installment of the Disney Princess Enchanted Tales DVD series, with a brand-new story and animation. Not much is known about this release, but it is said to be set for a 2008 release.[dated info]
- Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother have appeared as guests in Disney's House of Mouse.
- Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother appear in the video game Kingdom Hearts and a world based on the movie, now confirmed as Castle of Dreams, is slated to appear in the upcoming game Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Cinderella, Jaq, Lady Tremaine, Anastasia, Drizella, Lucifer, the Fairy Godmother, Prince Charming and the Grand Duke have been confirmed to appear.
References
External links
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