Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (1957)
Saturday, March 7, 2015 at 10:19AM
Cinderella Week continues with Manuel on a true event in showbiz history...
How's this for a televised live event: on March 31st 1957, more than 107 million people watched Rodgers & Hammerstein's written-for-television musical Cinderella starring none other than not-yet-household name Julie Andrews. Critics and networks have bemoaned the increasingly fractured TV landscape and when you look at numbers like that (aided, of course by novelty as well as lack of choice) you can't help but marvel at what that must have felt like. Think of the snarky tweets and memes 107 million people could have come up with! This is, of course, what NBC has been trying to accomplish with its musical events (kickstarted not coincidentally with another Julie Andrews vehicle and followed, oddly enough, with the production that gave CBS the idea in the late 50s to produce a new musical for a Sunday night broadcast).
But let's leave ratings and metrics aside and focus on the opportunity to see a pre-Mary Poppins Julie Andrews light up the screen. It’d be seven more years before Andrews’ Oscar-winning role and by 1957 she was more of a stage actress. Ever the pro, Andrews starred in Cinderella while performing on Broadway as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, a role she’d nabbed right after starring in The Boy Friend after its London transfer. Watching her take on Cinderella is almost like a catching a brief glimpse of everything that could and would be. Her saccharine naivete, both knowing and earnest, which marks both her later Mary and Maria is already here, matched to those glorious vocal chords. It makes Jack Warner's infamous decision to cast Audrey Hepburn over Andrews all the more galling (if understandable from a bankability perspective). But really, this Cinderella is all about Andrews. Indeed, just as Rodgers & Hammerstein agreed to write the show mostly because they wanted to work with her, she remains the preeminent reason to watch the (black and white) version of the telecast that survives: originally broadcast in color as well as in black & white for the east coast, only the black and white kinescope copies remain.
Cinderella, as Tim noted in reference to Disney’s animated version, is a story that one has to approach somewhat tentatively. Prod at it too much and its heteronormativity and entrenched gender roles begin to grate. It explains why productions tend to dazzle you with such fol-de-rol and fiddle-dee-dee, as it wanting to tart up the material lest you examine it closely. In this case, we have the gorgeous costumes (and headpieces!) by Jean Eckart. I’d be tempted to ask what makes Cinderella such a costume designer’s dream but I then the plot hinges on a makeover and a pair of glass slippers!
The telecast is overall a mixed success; Andrews’ vocals soar (watch her take on “In My Own Little Corner” below) and Kaye Ballard, Alice Ghostley (as Cinderella’s stepsisters), Ilka Chase (as her stepmother) and Edie Adams (as her head cheerleader fairy godmother; seriously why does she have a baton for a wand?) infuse the show with a needed wry sense of humor, but Jon Cypher pretty much stops the show on its tracks whenever his prince appears. Wooden and uncomfortable, it’s a surprise Andrews manages to sing convincingly their “Falling in Love With You” number. Overall, you get a sense this is a show conceived for the 4:3 screen that houses it. The ball, which is supposed to feel sumptuous and grandiose feels rather small and cramped while the character dynamics feel as two-dimensional as the clocktower that hovers over the ball. There really isn't much conflict here, though I guess that's already present in the original material.
The stepsisters put it best. Much like Cinderella herself, this iteration of Perrault’s fairy tale is “a frothy little bubble with a frilly sort of air,” effervescent and rather short and slight, if enjoyable nonetheless.
Reader Comments (14)
that voice!
i sometimes like to try to imagine the Julie Andrews craze in modern times and it's just impossible. the culture was just so much more united back then. Consider that in by 1965 she had the #1 television show of all time and the #1 movie of all time. She was like Titanic, E.T. and Avatar all rolled into one ;)
I have the DVD of this and Julie is truly magical in it. It's not a great version but considering the constraints of the period a good one, what it is is a great document of early Julie when she spent most of her time on stage which of course is lost to the modern audience. The DVD has some cool extras, an intro from Julie herself as well as interviews with Julie, Edie Adams, Kaye Ballard and Jon Cypher about the production and a few other nice features.
I am excited for your take on Lesley Ann Warren after reading this!
Kay Ballard in this version and Pat Carroll in1965 are the best stepsisters EVER!
James--I was also wondering if the Lesley Ann Warren version would be featured this week.
One of the most heart-breaking (but not tragic, that's a whole other can of worms) moments in my career teaching theater was losing out on the rights to this stage show. We had the perfect girl to play the Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella. The Prince, the Queen, the Stepmother, and the Stepsisters were all lined up, too. We announced the show to the students. They were genuinely excited. People, we had an in to have an actual white horse and show carriage inspired by Cinderella loaned to the theater free of charge for all performances.
Then, the heart-break happened. When we went to apply for the rights, they were no longer available. Later that afternoon, the Broadway revisal of the musical was announced. Other productions weren't pulled in the area (and we're right outside of NYC); you just couldn't license the original or expanded for Brandy TV movie versions anymore. It didn't matter that they were doing a completely different version of the show with new lyrics and libretto on Broadway. They didn't want anyone to further dilute the name.
We wound up doing this charming but lesser known Cinderella musical called A Tale of Cinderella. It was cute. It just did not have one song even as good as the ball sequence in the Rodgers & Hammerstein version. Just the worst.
What I'm saying is that this is my favorite version of Cinderella onscreen. It's just magic.
Although I grew up with the Leslie Ann Warren version, I got my hands on the soundtrack LP for the original 1957 production when I was in my twenties, and fell in love with it. When the kinescope finally surfaced on PBS ten or twelve years ago, I videotaped it. I have watched with my kids, and anybody who hadn't seen it, a bunch of times.
Aside from being a treasured example of what glories "primitive" TV production was capable of in the live-from-NYC era, this is a tremendous version of the story. (No knock on Leslie Ann Warren, who brings an adorable trembling innocence to her performance that Broadway trouper Julie Andrews doesn't.) Rogers and Hammerstein were, of course, geniuses, and even a quick project they knocked off for TV is brilliant. The songs are wonderful and have lots of staying power, as exhibited by the two later TV productions and the Broadway show.
But the real reason I prefer the original 1957 version is that IT'S THE ONLY ONE THAT USES HAMMERSTEIN'S BOOK. And Hammerstein's take on the material - particularly the treatment of the stepmother and stepsisters - is a pleasant departure from the usual. Yes, they take advantage of Cinderella and reduce her to a servant in her own home... but they don't abuse her, and it's clear that there's actually some affection on both sides. They are not one-dimensional villains, just selfish and misguided. There's a sense of family present in songs like "A Lovely Night" that rings truer than the usual SO EVIL stepmother and stepsisters. Hammerstein's presentation of the royal family also comes across better than many other versions. (Even if, admittedly, Jon Cypher as the prince is a wooden cypher with bupkis presence. This would actually work to his advantage decades later when he played craven politician Chief Daniels on Hill Street Blues!)
Again, I also love the LAW version from 1965, even with its less proactive Cinderella and inferior book (and it's got great performances all around, and interesting sixties production design). I was 10, and it was my introduction to these great songs and I fell in love with Leslie Ann Warren instantly - how could I not? But the 1957 live version with Andrews' big voice and the original book, that's the REAL stuff!
Julie was brilliant in Cinderella - she had an absolutely beautiful voice.
OK here's the thing. Julie Andrews is the most gifted female performer the film world has or probably will ever see. Even her so called flops are undiscovered treasures. Her concert tour from 1988 stands as one of the greatest concerts ever documented. She's so underrated as an actress. Duet For One and That's Life--two GG noms in one year. Read her memoir Hime in which she tells if the making of Cinderella. A true artist and wonderful person.
I dunno, brookesboy. I adore Miss Andrews and just about everything she's done, but for me "the most gifted female performer the film world has or probably will ever see" will always be Judy Garland, who was also more underrated as an actress (two Oscars nods, no wins, as opposed to Julie's three nods, one win – at least they gave Judy that special Juvenile Academy Award).
Paul I'm sorry a few typos in my post. Shud have said "most gifted female musical performer." And it was Home that was her memoir. For me, Julie trumps Judy in the personal aspect. I love Judy but she was not strong or inspiring like Julie. That is the X factor.
paul - agreed. I don't think there will ever be another triple threat as otherworldly talented as Judy Garland. Still pissed at Frank Sinatra for trying to steal her "World's Greatest Entertainer" tag.
I'm still perplexed about why Julie got stuck with this saccharine label. Yes, Maria is certainly a goodie-goodie. But Mary Poppins was no shrinking violet. And in her second film, The Americanization of Emily, Julie played a character who was more than just a little cynical. And after SOM came Hawaii and Torn Curtain, both giving Julie roles that were complex and far from naive. I just don't get this image.
brookesboy, when your early signature roles (Cinderella, Eliza Doolittle, Maria von Trapp and Mary Poppins) can be reduced to an essential quality that's striving, upbeat, decent and wholesome and when your offscreen persona is hard-working, professional, polite and (again) wholesome, you are going to be a blessing to the entertainment industry but you're also likely to become an icon of saccharine – and not sugar, because people are too cynical to believe that the sweetness isn't somehow artificial. (I've been getting shit for being a Julie Andrews fan for years.)