Cinderella (film)

Cinderella is a 1950 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale of the same title, it is the 12th Disney animated feature film. The film was directed by Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, and Clyde Geronimi. It features the voices of Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Rhoda Williams, James MacDonald, Luis van Rooten and Don Barclay with Helene Stanley and Claire Du Brey each serving as the live model for Cinderella and Fairy Godmother respectively.

During the early 1940s, Walt Disney Productions had suffered financially after losing connections to the European film markets due to the outbreak of World War II. Because of this, the studio endured box office bombs such as 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. By 1947, the studio was over $4 million in debt and was on the verge of bankruptcy. Walt Disney and his animators returned to feature film production in 1948 after producing a string of package films with the idea of adapting Charles Perrault's Cendrillon into an animated film.

Rating[]

Cinderella is rated G by the MPAA, making it the twelfth Disney animated film to deserve that rating, after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, Fun and Fancy Free, Melody Time and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

Cast[]

Ilene Woods as Cinderella, a humble, kind-hearted and hard-working young woman who is forced to become a maidservant due to abuse by her stepmother and stepsisters. Around 380 applicants auditioned for the role until it was announced in March 1948 that Woods had been cast.
- Helene Stanley served as the live model for the character.
Eleanor Audley as Lady Tremaine, Cinderella's cruel and abusive stepmother, who despises her stepdaughter for being more charming and beautiful than her own daughters.
Verna Felton as the Fairy Godmother, a kind-hearted and slightly absent-minded sorceress who helps Cinderella get to the ball and meet the Prince.
- Claire DuBrey served as the live model for the character.
Rhoda Williams as Drizella Tremaine, Lady Tremaine's elder daughter and Cinderella's stepsister.
Lucille Bliss as Anastasia Tremaine, Lady Tremaine's younger daughter and Cinderella's stepsister. (uncredited)
James MacDonald as Jaq, Gus and Bruno, Cinderella's animal friends.
Luis van Rooten as The King, the Prince's short-tempered father who wants his son to get married and have children.
- Van Rooten also provides the voice of the Grand Duke, the King's fussy majordomo and confidant.
Don Barclay as the Doorman
William Edward Phipps as Prince Charming, the King's son, who falls in love with Cinderella. (uncredited)
- Mike Douglas provided the uncredited singing voice for Prince Charming.
June Foray as Lucifer, Lady Tremaine's mean-spirited cat who attempts to hunt down Jaq and Gus. (uncredited)
Betty Lou Gerson as the Narrator (uncredited)

Credits[]

Cinderella Credits

Gallery[]

United States[]

Trivia[]

The film's copyright was renewed on December 3, 1976.^[1]
Cinderella's slippers have been made of many materials, but this version takes after the popular Charles Perrault version of the story, the first in which the slippers are made of glass. There is debate between scholars and translators whether this was a translation error, or Perrault's own poetic addition.^[2]
Strangely, unlike all the other human characters who are seen barefoot in this movie, Cinderella (whenever she's barefoot) has no visible toes. (She also seems to lack ears)
Walt Disney said Cinderella was his favourite fairy tale because he saw himself in her shoes since he also worked hard and got rewarded for his work.
Disney's interpretation is the first to take advantage of the fact that the slipper is still only made of glass, with Lady Tremaine shattering the lost slipper before Cinderella can put it on.
- Ironically, the Grand Duke warns the King that any number of girls might fit the slipper; however, Cinderella is the only one who can produce the slipper's match. This could be a metaphor for how there are many beautiful women in the world but only one true love.
In the CBS television special, AFI's 10 Top 10, the movie was named the 9th Best Animated Feature of all time.
Not only is the name of the Prince never revealed in the original, but he is nowhere in the film mentioned as "Prince Charming".
Ilene Woods revealed in an interview that Walt Disney was probably the first person to use double tracked vocals, where the singer records herself singing both the melody and the harmonies. The vocals were then mixed together, creating a seamless effect.
- In 2003, she was awarded a Disney Legends award for her voice work on the film Cinderella.
The Prince is usually known as Prince Charming, though some supplementary material shows that his name is Henri, or Henry. However, he was never referred to by name anywhere in the film.
The unnamed Prince, or Prince Charming, was given a name in the ABC fairy tale fantasy drama Once Upon a Time, as Prince Thomas, since the unnamed prince from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs had been dubbed Prince Charming in the program.
When Walt had the resources to return to full-length animation in the late 1940s after the war, he was indecisive over whether they should produce Cinderella or Alice in Wonderland first and finally decided to have two animation crews working on each film compete with each other to see not only which would finish first but also which did the best job.
If you look closely at the carriage that Cinderella and the Prince take after, the wedding has an emblem of a sword and two hidden Mickey Mouse heads around it.
A song called "Dancing on a Cloud" was cut from the film.
For the German version, the original opening narration about Cinderella's past was read by Drizella's voice actress Erika Görner. On subsequent releases of the film beginning in 1998, this was replaced with a new narration read by Joachim Pukaß, to explain that this is a Disney film coming from the US and that "Aschenputtel" is called "Cinderella" over there. The rest of the film is left intact from its original 1950 dub, though the original German narration has never been made available since.
Cinderella actually loses a shoe 3 times in the film: first, when she delivers the breakfast trays (causing Lucifer to look under the wrong cup), second, when she is running away from the ball, and third, walking down the steps with her new husband.
The film was the first film to be worked on by all nine of the legendary "Nine Old Men" of the Walt Disney animation department.
The royal proclamation on the castle gate wall reads: "All loyal subjects of his Imperial Majesty are hereby notified by royal proclamation that in regard to a certain glass slipper, it is upon this day decreed that a quest is instituted throughout the length and breadth of our domain. The sole and express purpose of said quest is as follows, to wit: that every single maiden in our beloved Kingdom shall try upon her foot this aforementioned slipper of glass, and should one be found whose foot shall properly fit said slipper, such maiden will be acclaimed the subject of this search and the one and only true love of his Royal Highness, our noble Prince. And said Royal Highness will humbly request the hand of the said maiden in marriage to rule with him over all the land as Royal Princess and future Queen."
According to Marc Davis, one of the directing animators of the movie, at least 90% of the movie was done in live-action model before animation. Dancer Ward Ellis was the live-action model for Prince Charming. Cinderella's carriage is actually a live-action model painted white with black lines; this was the first time this technique had actually been used.
Gus' full name is Octavius, presumably after the private name of the Roman Emperor Augustus. Gus can be short for either Gustavus or Augustus.
All the animal characters in Cinderella were written to speak. Major had a song entitled "Horse-Sense" which she sang with Bruno after being scolded for growling at Lucifer. However, in the final film, it's only the mice who are the only animals that have been given the ability to speak, while other animals, such as Bruno, Major, Lucifer, and the birds do not speak except for their respective animal sounds.
The story takes place roughly in June. In the movie, the sun rises slightly before 6:00 AM (in France), as it would within a few weeks of the summer solstice. Also, by this time, a pumpkin would have grown to 20–40 pounds.
Ilene Woods suffered from Alzheimer's disease in the later years of her life. During this time, she did not even remember that she had played Cinderella, but nurses claimed that she was very much comforted by the song "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes".
Although it is often assumed that Lucifer falls to his death from the tower, he is regularly shown as being alive some time later, in various (semi-)official novelizations, story-book spin-offs, and other promotional materials made to provide an epilogue to the characters after the movie ended, as well as the direct-to-video sequels. The logic of how he survived is never addressed directly.
"Screen Director's Playhouse" broadcast a 30-minute radio adaptation of the movie on June 30, 1950, with Verna Felton reprising her film role.
Lucifer was modeled after animator Ward Kimball's cat. Animators were having trouble coming up with a good design for that cat, but once Walt Disney saw Kimball's furry six-toed calico, he declared, "For gosh sakes, Kimball! There's your Lucifer right there!"
While it could be just a coincidence, it may not be, three of the lady mice in the dress making scene (around when Jaq says "Poor Cinderelly") are in green, pink and blue dresses - not quite the exact same colors as the Three Good Fairies in Sleeping Beauty (1959), which would be released 9 years later. Also, Verna Felton voices Fairy Godmothers for both films; in Sleeping Beauty, she is Flora, the red member of the team.
When auditioning for the role of Prince Charming, Mike Douglas was asked where he was from. When he replied, in his Illinois accent, that he was from Chicago. He was told that he was not going to do the speaking role, and so William Phipps was cast as Prince Charming while Douglas sang for the role.
The movie was the first fully-developed, feature-length film the studio released after wartime cutbacks forced them to release several "package films" (Melody Time (1948), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), et al.). The success of the animation department depended greatly on its success.
The Goofy holler is heard from The Grand Duke when he and the King fall from the chandelier after the Duke informs the former of Cinderella's departure from the ball. This marks the first time the Goofy holler is heard in a full-length feature film in the Disney Animated Canon (although the holler was previously heard in one of the segments of Make Mine Music and Fun and Fancy Free respectively back in the 1940s decade), which is occasionally used in future films, such as The Rescuers, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc. for intended comedic effect usually when Disney characters fall off high places or get thrown off to another place even though Goofy does not appear.
It is vague whether the film is set in France or a Hispanic nation, since most of the names end in 'a' and some of the fashion (including the thing on Anastasia's head, which is a peineta, a Spanish type of headdress) and furniture is Spanish rather than French. Additionally, someone says "mademoiselle? señorita?" when Cinderella runs off.
- Jaq (as Sir Hugh) claims that "zug-zug" is "French" in the sequel. Since Cinderella's hometown and the surrounding countryside resembles the region of Occitania, which spans across southern France, northern Spain, and Italy, this is most likely where it is set. This would make the characters' native language Occitan, though the Cinderella films were not dubbed into the language, nor were any Disney films.
This is the seventh Disney animated classic to have the 2006 Walt Disney Pictures logo with just Disney at the end of the movie, on current releases.
Most of the female mice during "Work Song (Cinderelly, Cinderelly)" were voiced by men doing falsetto, as evident when one listens to them without the artificial pitch-shifting.
This is the last Disney Princess film to be released by RKO Radio Pictures.
This is the first Disney Princess film to have tobacco depictions.
This is the first Disney Princess film to have the villains sing a song.
This is the first Disney Princess film to have chickens.
This is the first Disney Princess film to be released during the time of the Cold War, which was a geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, which started in 1947 and lasted to 1991.
This is also the only Disney Princess film to be released during the papacy of Pius XII, whose reign began 11 years prior to the film's release.

Goofs[]

The slipper Cinderella loses is a left-toed shoe, and so is the other one she pulls out after it gets shattered.
The Disney Villains limited-edition DVD cover for the film shows Lady Tremaine holding a wand, which she does not do until A Twist in Time.

References[]

↑ Catalog of Copyright Entries
↑ Glass Slipper#Trivia

[1] Catalog of Copyright Entries

[2] Glass Slipper#Trivia

[1]

[2]