A promotional poster for the 1950 DIsney animated film CInderella

“A dream is a wish your heart makes!” Unless you’re having a nightmare. Then I guess you’re on your own.

As you may have conjectured, today we’re talking about one of Disney’s most iconic films, its 1950 adaptation of the classic fairy tale Cinderella. Added to the National Film Registry in 2018, Disney’s Cinderella is what I would describe as a confection of a movie: soft colors, graceful movements, a pervasive sense of magic. Even Lady Tremaine, the evil stepmother, embodies a sort of dark, sophisticated glamor that fits in with the aesthetic palette of the film.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we can talk about the significance of Cinderella, we need to take a little look at Disney’s history.

Snow White, Disney, and World War II

An Academy Award statue accompanied by seven identical but smaller statues — The special Academy Award given to Walt Disney for his pioneering production of *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs* (1937).

Disney’s production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 was a groundbreaking achievement and an enormous critical and commercial success, setting a high bar for future animated feature films and creating great expectations for Disney’s animation studio. Most unfortunately for Walt and company, however, the beginning of World War II just two years later meant that the studio’s access to European markets was effectively severed. As a result, Disney released a handful of animated features in the early 1940s that performed poorly at the box office (though, through the magic of future re-releases, films like Bambi (1942), Fantasia (1940), and Pinocchio (1940) would go on to become Disney classics).

A deer, a rabbit, and a skunk in the woods — Films like *Bambi* were less successful than anticipated, largely due to the war.

Still, the fact remains that by the time the war ended, Disney was plagued by millions in debt and facing bankruptcy. It needed a comeback, and quick. Enter Charles Perrault’s seventeenth-century fairy tale, Cendrillon.

Cinderella’s development and production

Illustration of a young woman in front of a fire, over which a fairy hovers — Oliver Herford’s illustration of Cinderella and her fairy godmother, inspired by Charles Perrault’s *Cendrillon.*

Story

Black-and-white cartoon of a fairy, a cat or dog, and a young woman in front of a fireplace — A still from Disney’s 1922 Laugh-O-Gram cartoon short of the story of Cinderella.

An adaptation of this story had been on Disney’s radar since the 1920s, when the studio produced a cartoon short based on the concept, and Walt was interested in making another short in the 1930s. The ideas that were suggested, however, proved too big and involved to be made into a short, and the idea was pitched in the late 1930s that the concept should be allowed to stretch out into a feature film.

You read that right—in the 1930s. So what took so long?

Production problems

Cinderella never really went through development hell as we think of it now, but the story’s journey was very involved. Storyboards, an outline, a treatment, another treatment, story meetings, a money squabble between Walt and his brother Roy, arguments about how much agency Cinderella’s character should have—everything but the kitchen sink. In fact, by the time the marketing campaign for the theatrical release was underway, the film was billed as having been in the making for six years, and advertisements for the picture dubbed 1950 “the Cinderella year.”

Advertisement for Disney's 1950 film Cinderella — Marketing material for Disney’s *Cinderella*. They’re really building up this interpretation, aren’t they?

Live-action referencing as a way to reduce costs

Walt knew he had to be more strict with Cinderella than he had been with previous pictures. He was working on a tight budget, and the future of the studio largely rested on Cinderella’s petite little shoulders. Because of this, Walt determined that live-action animation referencing needed to be used in a new way.

An image of a woman measuring another woman's dress next to a cartoon version of the same scene — Live action referencing was used extensively for *Cinderella*.

Live-action referencing (the process of having actors play out scenes for animators to reference for inspiration) had been a staple of the Disney process for creating its animated features (including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), but this time Walt was less focused on inspiration and more on reducing expenditures in time and money. As a cost-cutting measure, animators would not be allowed to make changes to their scenes after they were animated, so everything was shot in live action first to establish timing, movement, and staging. It was…not a favorite of the animators, many of whom felt that their creative wings were being clipped. Still, they put their all into it, and the movie was made.

Nine men in suits pose in front of storyboards — Disney’s “Nine Old Men,” named in a parody of FDR’s epithet for the Supreme Court, were a core team of animators who would bring some of Disney’s most iconic projects, including *Cinderella*, to life.

Cinderella’s release

The long-awaited premiere of Disney’s Cinderella proved to be well worth it. It’s true that critical evaluations of the princess herself could best be described as “meh,” with many reviewers finding Cinderella (and her Prince Charming) bland and uninteresting, particularly when compared to Cinderella’s colorful and personality-laden family members and the animal characters.

An illustration of a woman in a ball gown surrounded by stars and sparkles — A sketch of Cinderella’s transformation. While many reviewers were unimpressed by Cinderella’s perceived lack of personality, the animation was praised. In particular, the transformation scene, in which the fairy godmother magically replaces Cinderella’s rags with a ball gown and glass slippers (animated by Marc Davis), was Walt’s personal favorite piece of animation from all his films.

Still, assessments of the film as a whole were full of praise: critics were impressed by the animation, the music, and the gentle tone of the narrative. This acclaim was echoed when Cinderella was re-released in 1987. Reviewers particularly praised the background animation and side characters, evaluating them favorably compared to Disney’s more lackluster releases from the 1970s and 1980s.

A wide park at night, surrounded by trees and a gazebo — Disney’s background animation for *Cinderella* was highly praised, particularly in reappraisals of the film.

Modern appreciation for Cinderella

Whether you’re talking about Disney’s Cinderella or some other version of Charles Perrault’s 300-year-old Cendrillon, Cinderella is a character that has become iconic in the Western canon. She is the ultimate fairy tale princess, and there have literally been thousands of adaptations of her story. Disney’s animated retellings of fairy tales are well-known for glossing over the more gruesome elements of these classic stories (you will note that in Disney’s version neither Anastasia nor Drizella cut off a toe or a heel to fit into the slipper, leading to a bloody mess), but the graceful animation, detailed backgrounds, vibrant side characters, and, yes, the princess herself have helped Cinderella endure. In fact, in 2008 the American Film Institute named Disney’s Cinderella the ninth best animated film in American film history, and only ten years later the movie was inducted into the National Film Registry.

An illustration of three women in ball gowns walking past a staircase — *Cinderella*’s side characters were a favorite of critics. Side note: I do love a good bustle, don’t you?

Personally, I have many good memories of this movie. While Cinderella was never my favorite Disney princess (hi, Belle!), I still remember watching this film (on VHS tape, what a throwback) quite a lot as a child. As my friend Kelly will tell you, I have a tendency to become overinvested in the fates of movies’ animal side characters, and Cinderella offers a positive bounty of those.

An illustration of two mice surrounded by beads while one mouse strings beads onto the other's tail — Jaq and Gus, my favorite characters in the film, try to save the beads from a necklace before the cat gets them.

Gus-Gus is a forever favorite, and every time I glare up at the seemingly never-ending stairs leading to my apartment, I picture Gus-Gus gasping for air while trying to climb the staircase to Cinderella’s room toward the end of the film. And, of course, as my mom will always recall, the chamberlain’s comically elongated pronunciation of “DuBois” as he reads the names of the princesses at the ball has been in my vocabulary since I was a wee one.

An animated prince rolling his eyes — Bored, much, Your Highness? While Prince Charming doesn’t have much in the way of personality, I do love his occasional bursts of facial sarcasm.

This is a classic Disney film from the time when Walt’s “Nine Old Men” animation team reigned supreme, sitting smack-dab at the intersection of beautiful animation and nostalgia. If you’re in the mood for something that goes easy on the brain but is a treat for the eyes and ears, check out Cinderella, and remember: just as Tin Toy (1988) saved Pixar, Cinderella saved Disney. Even if Cinderella isn’t your favorite, keep your favorite in mind while you watch because without Cinderella, it probably wouldn’t exist.

Camille

Cinderella (1950)