Disney’s return to feature length animation happened with 1950’s Cinderella, a do-or-die project for the studio which, like Snow White before it, rescued a company teetering on the brink of collapse. And leave it to Disney and his collaborators to take a centuries old story and make it their own while retaining the gist of the fairy tale’s charm and enhancing it with their own kind of magic. Then and now, Cinderella is the very essence of what a fairy tale should look like, sound like, and inspire in the child within us all.
Cinderella: Diamond Edition (Blu-ray Combo Set)
Directed by Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi
Studio: Disney
Year: 1950
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 1080p AVC codec
Running Time: 75 minutes
Rating: G
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, 1.0 English; Dolby Digital 5.1 French, Spanish
Subtitles: SDH, French, Spanish
Region: A-B-C
MSRP: $ 39.99
Release Date: October 2, 2012
Review Date: September 26, 2012
The Film
4.5/5
The age-old story of the unhappy lass enslaved by her wicked stepmother and prevented from going to a ball where the prince is searching for a potential bride only to be rescued by a fairy godmother who enables her wish to come true, inevitably enchant the prince, and eventually win him is all retained in this Disney version with the stepmother being made unusually cruel and demanding and the stepsisters intolerably selfish and grasping. But Disney’s genius comes with the enhancements to the film’s core (and relatively brief) story. In patented Disney style, he’s added mice and birds and the family’s aging horse and dog to assuage Cinderella’s loneliness and heavy burdens. And, of course, the team has added a sprightly song score to also add lilt and lyricism to the proceedings. All of these decisions make Disney’s Cinderella unique and have kept it, despite many live action remakes (The Glass Slipper, Ever After) and musical versions (Rodgers and Hammerstein’s comes immediately to mind), foremost in the memories of most moviegoers.
The invented mice characters, in fact, not only occupy a good percentage of the screen time and have for themselves one of the score’s most delightful tunes (“The Work Song” for the brilliant sequence where the mice and birds work together to make a dress for Cinderella to wear to the ball), but they also play a part in some of the story’s most dramatic moments (just watch the climactic sequence where Jaq and Gus-Gus struggle to get the key to Cinderella’s locked turret room in time for her to escape and try on the glass slipper and not feel yourself on the edge of your seat) and like the dwarfs in Snow White carry much of the heart and soul of the movie. They also have extended sequences with another inspired creation for the movie, their nemesis Lucifer the cat who’s a constant thorn (claw?) in their sides adding comedy touches to elevate some of the oppressive feel that the stepmother (in the imperious magnificence of Eleanor Audley) and stepsisters add with their constant sniping, sneering, and menace.
But Cinderella isn’t a supporting character in her own movie. She gets three superb ballads: “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” to open the picture and show her optimism amid the dour household, “Sing Sweet Nightingale” in counterpoint to her sister’s bellowing singing lesson and later harmonizing with herself in a vividly creative sequence with soap bubbles, and “So This Is Love” sung at the ball as she’s falling into rapturous love with the prince (sung by Mike Douglas but spoken by William Phipps). In the loving care of Ilene Woods as Cinderella, the songs are magical with her sweet, effortless voice velvety smooth and dreamy as she goes from hope to despair to fulfilled love.
Because of Disney’s shaky financial condition, Cinderella doesn’t have the showy, highly detailed animation that one finds in Fantasia, Pinocchio, or Bambi. But that’s one of its strengths: more is done with less as looming shadows and minimal painted backgrounds sometimes make for more evocative moments as when Cinderella runs weeping into the garden after being denied a chance to go to the ball. It’s spare but effective especially since this leads into the fairy godmother sequence where the always wonderful Verna Felton’s warmly scattershot ramblings and the song “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo” allows the animators to go to town and create magic before our eyes that’s visually spry and special.
Video Quality
5/5
The film is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is offered in 1080p resolution using the AVC codec. Sharpness is always consistent, and the color saturation levels are simply superb with some muted tones amid splendidly vivid hues always occupying the frame with parity and without clashing. Black levels are pure and true. There is no banding to be seen anywhere within the frame, and the entire movie rather sparkles. The film has been divided into 24 chapters.
Audio Quality
4/5
The disc offers the original theatrical soundtrack in a DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mix or in a slightly opened up DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 enhanced sound mix. The surround mix really only spreads some of the delightful Oliver Wallace and Paul Smith background score and the Jerry Livingston-Mack David-Al Hoffman tunes’ orchestrations into the front and rear channels with singing voices rooted to the center channel, but the enhanced mix is never overpoweringly stereophonic; it’s all been done with a very light, unassuming touch. The original mono mix sounds fine but is just a bit underwhelming by comparison. It’s good that it’s there for purists.
Special Features
5/5
The film is introduced by Diane Disney Miller in a 1 ¼-minute short piece that’s an optional part of the play menu.
The user may also opt for Disneyview side panels in place of the pillarbox bars used for Academy ratio presentations.
For those with I-devices or a laptop handy, the Disney Second Screen offers a digital storybook that you construct during the movie’s presentation.
The following video featurettes are in 1080p:
“The Real Fairy Godmother” is a brief biography of Mary Alice O’Connor, wife of one of Disney’s top art directors, who did fund raising and philanthropic work in Burbank for decades. It runs 11 ¾ minutes.
“A New Princess Fairyland” is a brief tour of the construction going on at Walt Disney World for an expanded Fantasyland featuring new areas devoted to The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Snow White. Once Upon a Time’s Ginnifer Goodwin serves as tour guide in this 8 ¼-minute ad for Walt Disney World.
“The Magic of the Glass Slipper” is a 10-minute short featuring shoe impresario Christian Louboutin trying to become inspired to create a 21st century version of the glass slippers.
An alternate opening sequence in storyboard form runs 1 ¼ minutes.
Tangled Ever After is a new G-rated short featuring the mayhem going on around the wedding of Rapunzel and Eugene. This 6 ½-minute animated short will remind you of a Roger Rabbit cartoon with its continual zaniness and destruction.
The remaining featurettes are carryovers from the last DVD release of Cinderella and are presented in 480i:
There are two deleted musical scenes which can be played separately or in one 9 ¾-minute group. They’re introduced by Disney animator Don Hahn.
In the audio music section, the demo for the title song runs 2 ¼ minutes while seven unused songs can be played separately or in one 17 ¾-minute arrangement.
There are three radio program excerpts from 1948 (where Ilene Woods reveals she’s to be the new Cinderella) to two 1950 programs used as PR for the movie. Together they run 12 ½ minutes.
“From Rags to Riches: The Making of Cinderella” is the most substantial extra on the disc, 38 ½ minutes giving background on Disney’s fortunes in 1948 and covering the original story, the specific animators chosen to illustrate specific characters, the voices chosen for the roles, and the use of music in the movie.
“The Cinderella That Almost Was” discusses the many permutations the story went through at Disney beginning in 1933 (when it was planned as a short subject) through further drafts and changes in story and characters and featuring some dropped sequences shown in storyboard. This runs 14 ¼ minutes.
“A Tribute to the Nine Old Men” finds (then) present-day Disney animators reminiscing about Disney’s talented team of animators who worked on the project and some of whom mentored them in their early years at Disney. There is also some (then) present-day footage of Milt Kahl, Eric Larson, Ward Kimble, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston. This runs 22 ¼ minutes.
“The Art of Mary Blair” introduces us to the life and art of Mary Blair who worked at Disney from 1941-1953 as a concept artist and then in 1963 was instrumental in helping design “It’s a Small World.” This lasts 15 minutes.
A storyboard-to-film comparison of the opening sequence also features some of the live action sequences used to help the artists in this 6 ¾-minute sequence.
The 1922 Laugh-o-Gram version of Cinderella runs 7 ½ minutes.
An excerpt from The Mickey Mouse Club features Helene Stanley who was the live-action model for Cinderella and who performs some of the opening sequence with the Mouseketeers. This runs 4 minutes.
There are six trailers for the film which can be played individually or in one 9 ¼ minute montage. They cover the releases in 1950, 1965, 1973, 1981, and 1987 (two trailers).
The disc features promo trailers for Secret of the Wings, Peter Pan, and Wreck-It Ralph.
The second disc in the set is the DVD copy of the movie.
In Conclusion
4.5/5 (not an average)
Magical in every way, Cinderella makes for a beautiful Blu-ray release. Disney has obviously listened to the complaints about Vault Disney on the internet and has provided the previous DVD featurettes on the Blu-ray disc itself, another wonderful bonus in this delightful package. Highly recommended!
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
