Cinderella was a real “Cinderella story” for Walt Disney and his Studio. The 1940s was a turbulent decade that brought an animators strike and World War II. Walt and his artists produced “package films,” like Fun and Fancy-Free (1947) and Melody Time (1948), which were short subjects strung together by a common theme for a feature-length. However, these weren’t traditional full-length feature films with one consistent story, characters, and songs.
Cinderella would be the return to that form—the first of this kind of animated feature since Bambi in 1942. The film was also a return to fairy tales and would prove to be Disney’s biggest success at the box office since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of Cinderella, which has rightly earned its place as one of the Disney Studio’s cherished animated classics.
Perhaps one of the most famous fairy tales of all time, Walt first adapted the story of Cinderella as a silent cartoon short for his Laugh-O-Gram Studio in 1922. It surfaced as a project again as a possible Silly Symphony in the early 1930’s, which didn’t pan out.
It’s first potential as a feature at Disney was in the late 30s, when story artists Bianca Majolie and Dana Cofy worked on adapting Cinderella, and then again, early in the 1940s, when Dick Huemer and Joe Grant began work on the film as story supervisors.
As the 1940s closed out, there would be a turning point at the Disney Studio. As noted by Walt’s brother in author Bob Thomas’ biography, Walt Disney: An American Original: “’ After the war was over, we were like a bear coming out of hibernation,’ Roy Disney once remarked, ‘We were skinny and gaunt and had no fat on our bones. Those were lost years for us.’”
As part of the “wake-up call” to this “hibernation” was a return to the Studio’s traditional animated features, with Cinderella the first out of the gate.
Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske, Disney’s Cinderella wisely takes the straightforward tale and expands it brilliantly for the big screen. The familiar elements are all there – the title character, whose Wicked Stepmother stops her from attending the Prince’s Ball, until a Fairy Godmother, a pumpkin, glass slippers, and a whole lot of magic make for a happy ending. However, in Disney’s version, there’s a cast of supporting characters, such as mice Jaq and Gus and the villainous sidekick cat Lucifer, that allows the story to be rounded out in an extremely entertaining way.
Cinderella was also a tour-de-force for Disney’s star animators, The Nine Old Men. Among them was Marc Davis, who crafted such a genuine performance with Cinderella herself that it was easy for audiences to connect with the main character. Davis is also responsible for what Walt deemed his favorite piece of animation: when the Fairy Godmother transforms Cinderella’s raggedy clothes into a beautiful ball gown.
Ward Kimball based Lucifer on his own cat and brought an element of feline realism, blended with a comedically calculating film villain, determined to get his paws on the mice.
And when it comes to villains, Frank Thomas’ work on Lady Tremaine, the Wicked Stepmother, is a Master Class in how minimal animation – the tilt of a head, the squint of an eye – can be even more chilling.
Adding to this performance is the voice of actress Eleanor Audley, who would continue to create iconic villains for Disney, later voicing Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Madame Leota in The Haunted Mansion theme park attractions.
She is one of a number of Disney vocal stalwarts in the cast, along with Verna Felton as the Fairy Godmother. She was also the voice of The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (1951), Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp (1955), Flora in Sleeping Beauty (1959), and elephants in both Dumbo (1941) and The Jungle Book (1967).
Brilliant sound-effects wizard Jimmy McDonald provided the “sped up” voices of Jaq and Gus.
There were also a number of voice acting legends in the cast, including Rhoda Williams and Lucille Bliss as stepsisters Drizella and Anastasia, respectively, as well as many who were uncredited, such as June Foray as Lucifer, Mike Douglas (later the host of a popular weekday talk show) as the singing voice of the Prince and Betty Lou Gerson (who would go on to voice Cruella de Vil in 1961’s 101 Dalmatians) as the opening narrator.
Headlining the cast as the lovely voice of Cinderella was Ilene Woods, who would perfectly perform most of the film’s now legendary songs by Oliver Wallace and Paul Smith, including “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo,” “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” and “So This is Love.” Like the songs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Pinocchio (1940), many of the songs in the film have become anthems for Disney.
Opening on February 15, 1950, in Boston, Massachusetts, and then on March 4, 1950, throughout the United States, Cinderella was a hit with critics and audiences, becoming the fifth highest-grossing film of 1950. It also ushered in a new era of Disney animated features that would include Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953).
In the seventy-five years since its release, the film has also become a part of pop culture, film history, and “Disney DNA,” with Cinderella Castle an icon at Walt Disney World, Tokyo Disneyland and in the opening logo for the Studio’s films.
And like so many great films, Cinderella has also been passed down from generation to generation.
It’s a happy ending to a real Cinderella story.
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
The Michigan Theatre poster is for the reissue in February 1957.
Exiting is 10,000 Bedrooms (1957)
Also on the Cinderella bill at Michigan Theatre:
Donald’s Snow Fight (1942) – reissue.
IMDB says the cartoon was reissued on December 7, 1956
Boy And His Dog (1946) Warner Brothers short – reissue
IMDB says the short was reissued on May 12, 1956
So Your Wife Wants To Work (Joe McDoakes) (1956) Warner Brothers short
“Do Not Confuse it with others” says the poster
Maybe referring to:
The Glass Slipper (1955) MGM (Leslie Caron)
Rodgers And Hammerstein’s Cinderella (TV) (March 1957) (Julie Andrews)
Also a German film (1955) which may or may not have been released in the US
For the record, ye editor stuck the newspaper ad on this post above – nowhere do I indicate or imply it was an advertisement for its original release. Thanks for deciphering all the clues on it to indicate what year this 1st reissue was. Good work!
Did you likewise note the trailer above was for its (June) 1965 reissue?
PS
Cinderella (1950) is the only film I went to the cinema and paid to see it 40 times over a 13 day period.
(September 1982)
The all Disney programme supports were Golden Eggs (1941) and The Olympic Elk (1952)
At the conclusion of the last session, the Cinema manager gave me 4 complimentary tickets – all of which went to Peter Pan (1953) – reissued in his cinema that following Christmas.
It was also the first 16mm print I purchased.
As would be applied to a later Disney release of the 1960’s, this film is “practically perfect in every way.” It brilliantly combines conventions of cartoon storytelling with a classic tale. The cat vs. mouse chase had become a cartoon cliche long before this film was released, and yet Disney keeps this age-old conflict fresh and vibrant with personality animation of the mice and their antagonist, particularly Jacques and Gus-Gus. Blending this subplot with the story of Cinderella provides urgency and suspense that otherwise might have been difficult to generate. The points where the mouse plot and the human plot dovetail are the highlights of the film–the stepsister finding a mouse in her teacup, the mice and birds combining their talents to create “a lovely dress for Cinderelly”, the scene with the Fairy Godmother, and finally the grand climax with the mice having to lug the key up an endless flight of a zillion stairs, only to be nearly thwarted by their nemesis the ubiquitous cat–these are the stuff of drama, of comedy, and ultimately of romance. And it all neatly disguises the fact that the Prince of Cinderella’s dreams has next to no personality or even presence in the film (after all it is the majordomo who tries the glass slipper on the feet of the maidens). In short, Cinderella is a tour-de-force from Disney and deserves its reputation as a Disney classic.
The one exception I would take is in the naming of the villain. I don’t believe it’s in good taste for the cat to be named Lucifer. If the artists had known what that name really meant, they might have chosen a different name for the cat. That one issue aside, the Disney Cinderella stands up with any of the other film versions of the classic tale, and surpasses many of them. (Although I must put in a plug for the Sherman Brothers’ score to “The Slipper and the Rose” which I find equally delightful to the songs in the Disney classic. Rodgers and Hammerstein also did a decent take on the story, which Disney later repurposed as a television musical.)
My wife made the same point about Lucifer when we watched the movie last month. I recall hearing similar objections in the 1980s to Gargamel’s cat Azrael in the Smurfs cartoons.
I watched this movie again just recently, having seen two stage productions of the Cinderella story (a retooling of the Rodgers & Hammerstein television musical, and Massenet’s opera) in the past year. You’re quite right in saying that it was the hit that Disney desperately needed in 1950; had it not been such a success, the studio might have folded right then. Then there’d be no Disney theme parks, no Disney Renaissance, no Disney Channel, no Britney Spears or Miley Cyrus. Who knows, maybe Hanna-Barbera would have become the world’s largest entertainment company, and they’d own Star Wars and the Muppets now. The mind reels.
Certainly there’s a lot to love about Disney’s “Cinderella”; the fairy godmother’s scene is a real highlight, and it’s no wonder that Walt took so much pride in it. Yet while I appreciate the film’s stature in animation history, it’s never been one of my top favourite Disney features. Much of it is about a cat chasing mice, a setup that was all the rage in the animated cartoons of the mid-20th century. I find that the cartoony design of the animal characters clashes with the realism of the human ones. The prince is probably the biggest zero in the entire history of Disney princes, and that’s really saying something. Finally, it troubles me that the stepmother and -sisters have no apparent motive for their cruelty, and they receive no comeuppance for their misdeeds in the end. All that happens to them is that they either have to find a new maid or, worse, start doing chores for themselves. All of these flaws, if I may call them that, are very minor, but they add up.
Rossini’s opera “La Cenerentola” eliminates all the magical elements from the Cinderella story (because they would have been impossible to stage 200 years ago), but it has a much more satisfying take on the family dynamics. It’s made clear from the onset that Cinderella is forced into servitude because her stepfather (yes, a stepfather in this version, the magnificently named Don Magnifico) could only afford dowries for his two girls, and in those days a girl without a dowry had few other options. In the final scene, the prince confronts the stepfamily and threatens to have them punished for their ill treatment of Cinderella, but Cinderella intervenes and forgives them. The penitent steps are humbled by this gracious gesture and declare that she’ll make a great queen. There’s a wonderful moment when Cinderella tells her stepfather that all she ever wanted from him was to be acknowledged as his daughter, and it ends with one of the great sextets in all opera. Makes me all teary just thinking about it.
In the early days of television there were a lot of highly-touted original musical extravaganzas based on classic children’s stories that had previously been done by Walt Disney: “Alice in Wonderland”, Mary Martin’s “Peter Pan”, the aforementioned “Cinderella”, etc. Could Disney’s feature have inspired Rodgers and Hammerstein to create their musical masterpiece? “It’s possible! Things are happening every day!”
I rarely say this – but I agree with every word Paul says above. Disney’s Cinderella has much to admire and enjoy. I watch it with my students at Cal Arts once a year – and they adore it. But distilled to its essence, it’s 50% a “Tom and Jerry” cartoon, 50% a rotoscoped retelling of the classic fairy tale. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it’s not the cohesive storytelling achievement of Snow White or Bambi – or later on with Lady and the Tramp and (IMHO) 101 Dalmatians.
And the ending’s non-denouncement of the Stepmother and the Stepsisters is something I try to understand with every viewing. A “shocked” expression on Lady Tremaine’s face is all the satisfaction we get. I tell my students to watch the climax from Cinderella’s point of view. Once she presents the other glass slipper – the nightmare of her family home is over. Cue the Happy ending.
The whole film could be viewed as from Cinderella’s abused psyche – with talking animals who wear clothes, a magical fairy godmother, and a pumpkin coach. In fact, the most realistic thing in the feature is the cruel personalities of the Stepmother and her daughters.
Me – I love the overall Mary Blair art direction, the songs, and the entire stretch from the introduction of the fairy Godmother through the castle ball. In the end, all in all, it’s not “practically perfect” – but a good start for Disney’s second act.
And, I’ve always suspected the flaws here inspired Walt to give Sleeping Beauty his all – as a make-good.
For the record, we didn’t see what happened to that lazy Maizy bird at the end of “Horton Hatches the Egg” either, both in the cartoon and the original book.
I always thought that the story should end with the stepmother and stepsisters forced to work as maids at the palace. Show them dressed in rags, down on their hands and knees, scrubbing the floor. Trying to put on a brave face, the stepmother says, “Well, at least we’re living in the palace!” Fade out.
Which is pretty much what happens in “Cinderella III: A Twist In Time.”
I can get behind Hanna-Barbara owning Star Wars and the Muppets, honestly.
In the Grimm Brothers’ version of the story (often called “Ashenputtel”) and in Sondheim’s version in “Into the Woods”, the stepsisters are punished by being blinded when Cinderella’s avian friends pluck their eyes out.
As stated above while Cinderella is certainly a very good film it’s also the first sign that Walt was moving his creative energies away from animation and towards other things. Even with Sleeping Beauty he’d let Eyvind Earle’s designs drive the focus of the picture so it looks great but also has some significant story issues.
Besides being a good movie, it was the RIGHT movie for that moment in time. You had the first wave of boomer babies toddling around and Depression-raised parents suddenly able to treat them to the goodies they missed. And here was their old friend, Mickey’s daddy, delivering something fresh and new yet reassuringly familiar. A lot of use grew up with Disney as the one name our parents automatically trusted, in movies, television, parks, comics, etc. And we grew up knowing Disney cartoons were somehow superior even when others were funnier, Disney comics were less childish than other funny animals, Disney movies were never bad and often pretty cool, “World of Color” was the best show on Sunday night, and Disneyland was the best place in the world. In time Disney’s very ubiquity and consistency made it something for teens to grow out of and rebel against, but that’s a story for another day.
Cinderella is no favorite of mine, but I’m a little harsher than Paul and Jerry. Its story and characters aren’t very interesting (except Lucifer and the mice), and the animation’s too literal (except Lucifer and the mice). Unfortunately, the literal-Humans disease would infect Disney’s animation throughout the decade, thankfully being cured by the 60s. Ironically, the animation in the Disneyland show three years later is more groundbreaking. I might be biased because my sister–for a long time–watched the movie almost daily.
On a positive note, the scene by Kimball of Jacques waving goodbye awkwardly is one of the highlights of character animation, funny or otherwise.
Harsh is right. Yeah, I disagree completely with that whole part. Besides, the studio always strived to do animation in realistic way (such as in “Bambi”).