After nearly a decade of inexpensive, hastily released films, Disney was living on borrowed time. While those films had kept Disney on a ventilator, Walt knew he couldn’t keep making stuff like that for much longer. And with bank debt nearly at $4 million, Disney had one last chance to save the studio from total collapse. He met with his financiers at the Bank of America and acknowledged their desire for tighter economic restrictions but also stressed that if the Bank continued to refuse funding full length films, he’d lose his studio. And he begged for a chance to make the same stuff that had made him so much money in the 30s, and FINALLY, they gave him a chance and his long awaited revival took shape at last.
By late 47, Walt already had three full length films in development, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. With only one shot to return to his glory days, he rationalised that he needed to mark his return to full length films with something that recaptured the magic of Snow White. And as such, he figured the only film for that was Cinderella, since it contained many of the same elements as Snow White. At the same time, Walt also saw potential in Alice in Wonderland, based on the extremely popular Lewis Carroll series, which was greenlit and put into production around the same time. Walt put his nine best men, all of whom would later become known as the Nine OLD Men, to work on Cinderella while also overseeing Alice in Wonderland and battle it out to see which one would be finished and released first.
By early 48, Cinderella had progressed further, so it won the title of the studios first full length film in eight years. Like what they did with Dumbo, Cinderella’s budget would be very tight, with Walt desperate to keep costs as low as possible to further chances of the movie turning a profit and possibly revitalizing the entire animated movie department. To which end he also commissioned live - action recreations of most scenes for the animators to use as reference. And from here, the footage was edited frame - by - frame onto large sheets of paper for the animators to trace over. Ultimately, this was the bones for the work of the Nine Old Men, with everyone else in the animation department finding the process too restrictive to their artistry and exaggerating and elaborating on the live action references in their own way.
THE PLOT
In mid to late 1800s France, in a stately chateau, there lives a widowed gentleman and his only child, Cinderella, who he felt needed a mother’s care, so he marries his second wife, Lady Tremaine; a woman of good family, who already has two of her own daughters, Anastasia and Drizella. Upon this good man’s untimely death, however, Cinderella’s stepmother is revealed to be like all fairy tale stepmothers. A jealous, spiteful, self important shrew, who cares more about her biological issue than she ever does for Cinderella, to the extent that she squanders the family fortune on her daughters while Cinderella becomes a servant in her own home. Yet somehow, she doesn’t turn into an emo sociopath. One day, some ten years later, a royal ball is held to celebrate the prince, who I’m deciding to call Henri, returning home. So the king, who is desperate for grandchildren, invites every eligible maid to attend. And from there… I won’t dare spoil anything for those who may not have seen this movie yet.
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Since it’s current standing in the Disney canon, the visuals of this movie are surprisingly often overlooked, but it stands as one of the simplest movies of the year in that regard. And many put that down to one reason: because the elaborate shots are the ones you’ll always remember. The dress transformation and the ball dance are animated with extreme intimacy to keep the romantic and fairy tale elements in the foreground, and of course, to create more memorable moments. And that certainly worked for Walt, because, apparently, the dress transformation scene was said to be his favourite piece of animation ever…
After no one remembering any songs from the package films, Walt wanted to bring back that classic combination of music and animation that he’d become famous for. So during pre - prod, he brought back the same team who did the songs for Snow White and they created six songs for Cinderella, but Walt wasn’t satisfied and they were all binned. In mid 48, Walt sought out Mack David, Al Hoffman and Jery Livingston, all of Tin Pan Alley fame, who would become the first professional songwriters to be hired from outside the studio, crafting 10 songs for Cinderella. The score was written by Oliver Wallace, who already nailed Dumbo’s score, but he only finished it after the animation was also finalised, which makes it unique, since Disney always used to finish the score and animation simultaneously. Plus, the soundtrack was the first commercial release from the newly made Walt Disney Music Company.
Production on the movie was completed on 13/10/49, and Walt gave his final tick of approval to a film that would make or break his company. The lavish premiere was in Boston on 15/02/50 before a wide release on 04/04/50. The people, and the critics ADORED it, to put it mildly. Cinderella ended up being the best - received Disney film in years. Time Magazine called it “beguiling proof that Walt Disney still knows his way around fairyland”. Oscar - winning director Michael Curtis, the director of WW2 classic Casablanca, even wrote Walt a congratulatory letter hailing Cinderella as “the masterpiece of all the pictures you’ve done”. And the film would end up garnering three (unsuccessful) Oscar nominations, all for the music.
As per usual, though, it was the people who really set the seal on Disney’s revival. The film earned over $8 million in gross rentals and became the sixth highest-grossing film of 1950. Plus, with European markets now open again, it equally successful there. even going so far as to still be the 16th most successful film in France, where it sold 13.2 million tickets. Cinderella repeated what Dumbo did in 1941 and saved the studio from bankruptcy again. It illicited the necessary funds to keep the place from collapse. Flushed with cash, the studio went on to make a slew of animated & live-action films that saw the studio flourish for the next 20 years to come and become a titan of Hollywood.
MY VERDICT
So, I rewatched this one recently to prepare myself for this project and I found myself watching it again twice more over the next few days. I love this movie. The animation is incredible, the songs are (mostly) excellent and the characters sound and act like real people, at least for the 50s. My only problem is that the animal sidekicks are offered much more screen time than they should have and screen time that could be devoted to the Prince.
Is it his best work to date? Probably not, but it did reestablish Disney as the home of family entertainment and the once and future kings of animated cinema.
Is Cinderella a Disney Classic? Simple? Yes. A Disney Classic? HELL yes.
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