Cinderella Week: Disney's Animated Cinderella (1950)
Thursday, March 5, 2015 at 9:33PM With Disney's new live-action Cinderella nearly upon us, Team Experience is taking a look at some of the screen adaptations of Charles Perrault's classic fairy tale. Here's Tim to kick it off (the glass slipper et al.) - Editor
What better place to start Cinderella week, than with Disney's own version of the story? I give you the 2007 direct-to-video masterwork Cinderella III: A Twist in Time !
Wait, no, that's absolutely not right at all.
I give you Cinderella (1950)! The classic that saved Walt Disney Productions from extinction, birthed the studio's Silver Age Renaissance, and created the most princessy of all the characters in the Disney Princess marketing line-up, the one who will lead them into battle if they ever team up, Avengers-style, to save the world.
And it is kind of baffling to me that Disney has never apparently thought to go that route. [More...]
I might as well get the ugly bit out of the way first: indeed, Cinderella is the most typical of the princess films, and it's kind of awful. Cinderella talks to animals – they talk back, in a shrill little argot – and she sings to birds as they help her get dressed. She has absolutely no other dream or ambition other than to live in the palace, but it would be totally unfair to argue that she wants above all things to marry a prince, since she is totally sexless. There is no Disney heroine who's so easy to imagine as a smooth Barbie doll underneath the flouncy clothes; hell, the girl doesn't even have toes.
The possible impact of Disney's princesses on the psychological development of young girls is not something that I, a childless 33-year-old cisgender male, really ought to have an opinion on one way or the other, but Cinderella is absolutely the one princess out of all of them that I'd absolutely want to discuss in a long, sensitive conversation afterward with any little girls who found themselves swooning over her in my presence.
But it does feel a big grumpy to walk into a weeklong Cinderella party wearing a gender theory hat, so let me remove it to move onto happier territory: Cinderella is an absolutely gorgeous piece of animation, the rebirth of Disney's studio after the poverty enforced on it by World War II and the immediate post-war years. It's not as lush, nor as complex, as the first run of movies Disney produced between 1937 and 1942 (I mean, again, Cinderella has no toes), but the lavish colors and set designs, a gift from the invaluable concept artist and color stylist Mary Blair, give it the stately look of a very posh illustrated storybook, the perfect setting for a child's fairytale dreams to come to life.
It was also a triumphant return to form for Disney's character animation, seamlessly mixing the round, comic style of those talking mice, the absent-minded fairy godmother, and the ugly stepsisters with two of the greatest achievements in realistic character animation, Cinderella herself (supervised by Marc Davis, Disney's best animator of women) and her stepmother, Lady Tremaine (supervised by Frank Thomas). The latter, aided by the sublime voice acting of Eleanor Audley (who later brought Sleeping Beauty's iconic Maleficent to life, though I honestly think her work in this film is even better), is one of the subtlest and cruelest of all animated villains, characterized by small expressions that twitch across her hard, sharp-lined face. As for Cinderella, though the animation team is powerless to imbue her with a personality, they at least give her almost limitless elegance and swanlike fluidity in the way she glides through her world, a quicksilver sprite in the face of all the comic relief clomping about.
The film's glamorous style has given it quite a persistent impact in the cultural memory: this is one of the quintessential Disney films by just about every yardstick. It has its iconic moments – the transformation of Cinderella into her beautiful ball gown, to pick the most obvious.
It also boasts one of Disney's most well-known anthems, in the form of "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" (one of the film's three Oscar nominations for sound and music). And this despite it being, in the present author's eyes, kind of boring and drippy. Cinderella is a wet sock of a protagonist and her prince is even worse, the comic relief mice are annoying, and virtually all of the songs not sung by plump magical women are syrupy late-'40s ballads that drone in the brain for just a moment.
But it's gorgeous; it's excessively, one-of-a-kind gorgeous. And it possesses one of the greatest of all Disney villains, and that's not a little thing, by any stretch of the imagination. It maybe isn't enough, by itself, to justify the film's iconic stature, but it gives Cinderella teeth and bite beyond its seemingly limitless ability to pander to little girls.
Reader Comments (12)
omg i was so terrified by the first picture. lol. i 100% agree with this by the way. I've never really understood the appeal of her. possibly my least favoriteDisney Princess.
i mean within the context of this movie. Obviously the fairy tale and character has its appeal
Never understood the appeal of it either, but the one theory that made the most sense to me is that Cinderella and the Prince are both blank slates that are easy to project your desires onto, empty vessels to fill with your own personality and imagination. I suppose there's also something to yet another thought that they are defined by the hateful actions of the bad side and the generous gifts of the good side, so surely something about them must be worth it if the most interesting characters in the story help or hinder them as the story requires.
"hell, the girl doesn't even have toes."
*picture of Cinderella's toeless feet*
I died.
I am a slight Disney nerd (aren't we all?), and I loved this post. I have read that this was Walt's personal favorite of the animated movies that he supervised. Not quite sure what to make of that. Also, I agree with you that Eleanor Audley's work as the Evil Stepmother is just as good as her work on Maleficent. I think Lady Tremaine is infinitely scarier -- probably because she's also quite possible.
"...one of the subtlest and cruelest of all animated villains, characterized by small expressions that twitch across her hard, sharp-lined face."
THIS. One thousand times this. Lady Tremaine is terrifying when by all rights she shouldn't be - she has no magical powers, she doesn't skin puppies to make a fur coat (that we know of), the only transformation she goes through is when a dark shadow covers part of her face. But the character animation and voice work combine in the most brilliant way to create an iconic villain.
Is it possible that the toe-less Cinderella is a nod to the original Grimm fairy tale, in which one of the stepsisters cuts off her toe to fit into the glass slipper?
Sorry, you completely lost me at "cisgender."
LOL, I love this...and watching Cinderella makes me all the more happy that my kid's favorite Disney characters are Belle and Elsa. Like, thank you GOD for that!
Gorgeously animated, but I agree that Cinderella is tired. It's just not terribly interesting. I feel personally assaulted by Cinderella lately, between the mediocre Broadway show I was forced to go to (TWICE), seeing Into the Woods, her being in that Once Upon A Time tv show, and now this new live action version.
Time to send Cinderella back to the Disney vault for good.
It's a beautiful film. I actually like the score, too. The characters are boring but it's pretty to look at.
Maybe Cinderella is wearing really think panty hoes.
Anyway, I think there is a lot to mine from the story. Like why does she never ever rebel against her treatment? Cinderella is a psychological field day.
I like Cinderella a lot. Not so much the movie, but the character. She's hard working, mostly optimistic, sweet natured (despite dire circumstances) and she's actually a lot more witty than she's given credit. I love that she has a bit of irony to her (let's interupt the... music lesson!"), without being mean. I appreciate that she argues with the stepmother for her right to go to the ball. And, most of all, she BRINGS THE OTHER SHOE in her pocket, because she is sure as hell not going to let her future prospects rely on good luck or the kindness of others. She's worked her sorry little ass for her break and she is not gonna let it pass by. You seize that opportunity, girl! You seize it!