Walt Disney's Cinderella 75 Years Later

Seventy-five years ago, the classic tale of a young maiden named Cinderella would make it to the big screen as an excellent animated movie by none other than Walt Disney. But the story behind the story is also an excellent one itself.

     The story of what would become known as Cinderella started as a folktale from Greece during the 6^th century B.C. The story, first known as Rhodopis, would set up the idea of a young woman losing her shoe and a prince finding it. Another version told would be a 12^th century A.D. tale from China called Ye Xian. But it was not until the 17^th century that European author Giambattista Basile would write the first literary version of the fairy-tale. But, in 1697, Charles Perrault wrote the most famous version of the story. In his telling, written as Cendrillon, Perrault would introduce certain concepts that would become synonymous with the fairy-tale. In this case, he would introduce the idea of the Fairy Godmother, the pumpkin carriage, and the glass slipper. And this would be the version Walt Disney would choose to adapt.

    

     The first film adaption of Cinderella was made in 1899 by French filmmaker George Melies. After that, more films of the story, both animated and live action, would follow. Walt Disney would even do a short animated modern adaptation in 1922 at his original Laugh-O-Gram studio. Then, in 1933, Walt chose to revisit the tale as another short cartoon to be part of the Silly Symphony series. However, Walt and his story team found it difficult to condense a complicated story as this in a short form. Thus, in 1938, a year after the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt decided to adapt Cinderella into a feature film.

  

  

    By the time the movie version of Cinderella officially started production in 1948, it came at a crossroads of the Disney studio. After the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, the studio continued production on the follow up films Pinocchio and Fantasia, both released in 1940. Unfortunately, those films lost money on their first release because World War II started in Europe the year before, and it cut off the European market. While Dumbo (1941) was successful partly because it was a simpler production that was made on a cheaper budget, their next feature, Bambi (1942), lost money because of the war. Even after the war, the studio resorted to producing package films, which is a kind of movie that is a string of unrelated short films that are usually tied to a simple and loose theme, to keep animation production going. While package films such as The Three Caballeros (1945) and Fun and Fancy Free (1947) were minor successes, Walt decided that, to survive, they had return to real feature animated films. Walt knew they needed another story that was similar to Snow White, in this case a story about a maiden beset by evil and the classic fairy-tale of Cinderella was a perfect choice.

 

    For this film, Walt and his crew took a bare bones story and made it powerful and cinematic. They would also come up with a side story about Cinderella’s mice friends and their conflict with the villainous cat, Lucifer, that successfully extended the story into a suitable feature length. It is believed that this story appealed to Walt because it paralleled his life. People that know Walt Disney’s story would know that, similar to Cinderella, Walt Disney was a poor kid that had nothing. While his family was not dirt poor, they struggled a lot to keep afloat. But despite the tough times, Walt still had faith in the American Dream and would make something out of himself. But for the duration of the production, Walt wasn’t as involved in this as the previous animated features because he spent half of the time in Britain to produce the studio’s first fully live action movie, Treasure Island (1950).

 

    A part that made the production of film special was that it was the first one where a group of animators Walt called the Nine Old Men became directing animators. This group included renowned animators such as Frank Thomas, Milk Kahl, Ward Kimball, Ollie Johnston, Les Clark, Woolie Reitherman, Eric Larson, Marc Davis, and John Lounsebery. Most of these animators came to Disney in the 1930’s and would help create the art of Disney animation. While the film could not have the lavish production values that Fantasia had, it was the character animation that would make the film stand out. Also, since the film had to be produced on a more limited budget, it was first filmed in live action to give the animators reference material for their animation of characters such as Cinderella and the stepmother. The voices also brought such color to the film. Actress and singer, Ilene Woods, was first brought in as a tempt voice to record the demo version of the songs as a favor for the songwriters. After listening to her voice, Walt thought that she was perfect to be Cinderella herself. Ilene took the offer and was delighted that she was chosen out of the 300 other women who auditioned. The voice of the Fairy Godmother, Verna Felton, had an established Disney past because her first Disney role was the lead matriarch elephant in Dumbo and she was Thumper’s mother in Bambi. Even after Cinderella, Verna Felton would be featured in more Disney classics until her death in 1966. And the voice of Lady Tremaine the stepmother, Eleanor Audley, would continue to work for Disney, which includes performing the voice of the evil witch Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty (1959).

 

      As for the music and songs for the movie, Walt wanted it to have the feel of Snow White but also different. For that, he brought in the songwriting team of Mark David, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston. The three had initially worked in New York for Tin Pan Alley and wrote the song “Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba.” Walt heard it and brought them in to work on Cinderella and they wrote the first song for the picture, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” which would become the theme of the movie.

      Cinderella was indeed the biggest risk the studio had taken at that time. The studio had not released a single narrative animated feature since Bambi and the future of the studio was at stake. But when Cinderella was released in early 1950, it was an immediate success. Walt knew that he had a special movie, and he believed in it with all his heart. And with that, the studio would continue production of animated films and live action films. In 2018, the animated classic was inducted into the United States Library of Congress' National Film Registry. And all thanks to the story of a kind yet poor girl that learned that with faith, dreams can come true.