Victor Garber did it better

February 9, 2013

Alternatives: “Cinderella”

We hide our flaws until after the wedding (Due to a long wait for “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin” to come from Netflix as well as an inability to obtain a copy anywhere, I’m going to look at movies I will or would recommend instead of the Disney Princess film.)

Brandy and Whitney Houston. Bernadette Peters and Whoopi Goldberg. Jason Alexander and Victor Garber.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the Made for TV movie version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella,” which I said in my post on “Cinderella” that it is a better Cinderella story than the 1950 “Cinderella.” This particular film was made by Disney in 1997 for The Wonderful World of Disney and could maybe be praised its colorblind casting since that’s something TV is struggling with even today.

This “Cinderella” focuses on Cinderella (Brandy), who is a servant to her stepmother (Peters) and stepsisters, Minerva (Natalie Desselle-Reid) and Calliope (Veanne Cox). While at the market one day, she meets Prince Christopher (Paolo Montalban), who is in disguise so he can have a normal day. They click when they meet, but Cinderella must head off with her stepfamily. When Christopher returns to the castle, he finds out that his parents, King Maximillian (Garber) and Queen Constantina (Goldberg), are holding a ball to find a wife for their son. Cinderella wants to go to the festival ball, but that’s preposterous according to her stepmother because of her looks and station. Of course, the stepmother is out to only get a title and marriage, which troubles Cinderella. After her family departs for the ball, she wishes to go to the ball and her Fairy Godmother (Houston) appears, giving her a carriage and a gown. She arrives at the ball and falls in love with the prince, only to have to flee at midnight.

Cinderella actually has depth in this film. Here she dreams of leaving her current life, but it’s not specifically through the prince. Yes, she wants to go to the ball but she doesn’t see marriage as a way to escape her life. Similarly, the prince has a personality and is an interesting character. The prince isn’t just some cute prop that Cinderella falls for. In fact, we can actually understand why Cinderella would want to marry this guy because he’s actually very sweet.

We also have a horrible stepmother. While Lady Tremaine mostly sits or stands and grins wickedly, the stepmother in this film actually has a speech where she tells Cinderella that no prince could be attracted to her because she’s common. She schemes, but she also demeans her stepdaughter and uses her daughters to try to advance her position.

This film also benefits from not having any talking mice, although Jason Alexander’s accent might take some time to get used to because it is initially off-putting since he’s the only person in this film with an accent. But compared to the incomprehensible mice we are subjected to in the animated “Cinderella.” Although the fairy godmother in the animated movie is silly, Houston is absolutely fabulous in the role. What also helps is that she dispenses wisdom that is beyond needing magic to make your dreams come true. At one point she tells Cinderella that the only person stopping her from going to the ball is herself. The message that conveys to children is that even if you are wearing rags, you are fabulous and loveable because of who you are on the inside.

Christopher also falls in love with Cinderella because she is both beautiful and charming. As far as we can tell Prince Charming only falls in love with Cinderella in the animated film because she’s in a pretty dress and has a nice hairdo. (Also, Brandy and Moltaban have great chemistry.)

As a musical, this film also features terrific musical numbers with fantastic choreography by Rob Marshall. Yes, the same guy who directed “Chicago” did the choreography for this film. But while all the numbers in this are fantastic, the group numbers pop because of the choreography and how they’re staged. The best example of this is the ball where couples are dancing around the floor dressed in blue and purple, flawlessly moving in synch.

However, the film shows its age with the special effects. Instead of pixie dust, we have these curls that resemble clip art that float around the fairy godmother. Although I can understand why this is done, it looks incredibly cheap. There are also moments where it seems as though the fairy godmother was supposed to look like she was flying to accompany Cinderella on the way to the ball. Unfortunately, it ends up looking like a hologram of the fairy godmother has been juxtaposed onto the carriage.

Other than the special effects, the only thing I can knock the film for is that Garber doesn’t do any singing in it, but that’s a personal thing and not something that directly influences the merit of the film. For those who are looking for a good princess story with musical numbers to share with children, this is an excellent film that also has the Disney name accompanying it. This is also a great movie for musical theater fans to watch both for the cast that is assembled as well as the staging.

February 1, 2013

The Disney Princess Project: “Cinderella”

The mice are so annoyingPreviously:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

All I could remember of watching “Cinderella” when I was little is that I was bored, found the mice annoying and thought that the line “Wait! But I don’t even know your name!” to be absolutely hilarious. At that time, I enjoyed “Ever After” and the TV Movie version of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical more. After all, the 1997 TV movie had Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Alexander, Bernadette Peters, Whitney Houston, Brandy and Victor Garber. If you haven’t seen it, you must because it’s amazing mostly because of the cast assembled. But I am not here to tell you about the 1997 TV movie. I am here to tell you about the 1950 film.

In a way, “Cinderella” seems like the tainted movie. It has suffered from two direct-to-video sequels, Cinderella seems to be the main princess in the Disney Princess franchise–there are 108 items for Cinderella on DisneyStore.com, although there are 111 for Snow White–and in “Sophia the First: Once Upon a Princess,” Cinderella is the one princess summoned by Sophia to save the day. Cinderella is the alpha-princess of the Disney Princess franchise, which seems a bit odd since she is from the second-oldest film that is included in the franchise. But she gets the most iconic dress–although I find Tiana’s wedding dress to be prettier–and ends up with the guy that could best be described as traditionally handsome. (Although I would take Captain Li Shang and Hercules any day over Prince Charming.)

But unfortunately “Cinderella” is as unmemorable as I remember, but not as boring.

As the story goes, there was once a man who had a daughter named Cinderella (Ilene Woods), whom he loved very much. But the man married a woman, Lady Tremaine (Eleanor Audley), who had two daughters, Anastasia (Lucille Bliss) and Drizella (Rhoda Williams). One day, the man dies, which leads to Lady Tremaine wasting the family fortune. She abuses Cinderella and makes her the family servant and we are informed that the house falls into disrepair. One day, the king (Luis Van Rooten) holds a ball to find a wife for his son and the house Tremaine receives an invitation. Of course, Lady Tremaine and her daughters intent to go, but Cinderella lets them know that she wishes to go to the festival and dance before the prince. Her mice and bird friends make her a dress for the ball, but they stole items from Anastasia and Drizella, who rip the items off of Cinderella, ensuring that she can’t go to the ball. Cinderella cries in the courtyard and a fairy godmother (Verna Felton) appears, giving a coach, horses, and a white-blue ball gown that is “daring.” She goes to the ball, catches the eye of Prince Charming (William Phipps)–yes, he is actually named Prince Charming–and falls in love. But the clock strikes midnight and she flees, leading to a kingdom-wide search for the girl who is missing a glass slipper.

Oh, and there are some annoying mice named Jaq and Gus (Jimmy MacDonald) and a cat named Lucifer (June Foray).

“Cinderella” in some ways resembles “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” such as the use of a storybook as a framing device and the manuscript-like text for the opening credits. There is beautiful animation, mostly with the backgrounds, such as the courtyard when Cinderella is crying or the entire “Oh, Sing Sweet Nightingale” sequence. But the biggest problem with the animation is that it tells instead of shows.

We are told by the narrator that the House Tremaine falls into disrepair, but the house looks beautiful. Perhaps Cinderella’s scrubbing of the floors really does help, but I keep thinking that Cinderella must be a terrific painter and have impeccable wallpaper skills since the house looks immaculate considering it has fallen into disrepair. We are also told that the stepsisters are ugly, but other than giving the audience perpetual stinkface, they don’t seem to be ugly. In fact, I’d say that their dresses for the ball are prettier than Cinderella’s initial one, but that might be because their dresses weren’t made by mice and birds. Yes, the stepsisters are awful, abusive women, but unless the narrator is talking about inner beauty, we are only to believe that they are ugly because the narrator tells us to and because they aren’t Cinderella.

The biggest problem with this movie–other than that the prince is actually named Prince Charming–is that we have Cute Animal Sidekicks that reach levels of annoying that rival Terk in Tarzan and Mater. For starters, the only way to understand Jaq and Gus is to have the subtitles on while watching the movie. Then, they have an incredibly high pitched voice and speak so quickly that one has to wonder if even slowing down their dialogue would still have them speaking too quickly. On top of that, we are treated to extended sequences where Jaq and Gus fight with Lucifer because, guess what, cats hate mice.

Early in the movie we get an approximately ten-minute-long sequence where the mice decide to upset Lucifer. This does nothing for the movie–it provides no physical comedy, no important furthering of the plot–but it still exists.

Of course, Cinderella just wants everyone to get along and is appalled that Lucifer does not get along with the mice and that the dog does not like Lucifer.

There’s also the odd aspect that all the animals except Lucifer and the dog wear clothing. This implies to us that there is such a thing as naked creatures in this film. This means that when we first meet Gus he’s wearing no clothes, which feels like he’s naked. This always disturbed me as a child, but perhaps that is not intended by the filmmakers.

And then there’s the royal family who serves as props. Yes, the king tends to get angry easily and is not nearly as great as Victor Garber as the king in the 1997 TV movie. But we have the prince, who doesn’t even seem to get a proper name. Who names their son Charming? That’s like naming the one trans character in your TV show “Unique.” (No, wait, that’s worse than naming your son Charming.) The prince only has one characteristic and that is that he’s attractive. They only serve to make Cinderella’s dreams come true because her only dream in life is to go to the ball and maybe have all the animals get along.

Which brings us to the reason I watched this movie…

But is Cinderella a Good Role Model for Children?: No.

The film sends a message to children that the way to happiness is by marrying a prince. Cinderella doesn’t intend to go to the ball in order to win a prince, like her stepsisters, but she falls in love with a man at first sight and dances with. Granted, falling in love with a man you barely know is something that pops up often in Disney movies–we’ll see this again in “The Little Mermaid,” “Pocahontas” and “The Princess and the Frog”–so this means that it will irk me immensely in subsequent pieces. At least this can be justified in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “Sleeping Beauty” because both Snow White and Aurora were princesses and it was common in the time periods the films are set for princesses to participate in loveless arranged marriages.

Furthermore, Cinderella is maybe the most one-dimensional protagonist ever created for a Disney film. Except for when her dress is ruined, she only seems to have one mood, something that none of the other princesses I will examine have. In fact, were it not for the ball, she really wouldn’t seem to have any goals in life.

There are two Cinderella films that I mentioned earlier that would be better for giving a role model for children if you want to use this story. First there’s “Ever After,” which presents a bad-ass Cinderella character in Danielle (played by Drew Barrymore) who initially resists falling in love with the prince, but slowly falls in love with him. There’s also the 1997 TV movie which has Cinderella meet the prince early in the film and then appear at the ball. If you want a good role model while also presenting the Cinderella story, I suggest you look there.