Purely Joyful Movie!

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

In an European town, the folks eagerly await the return of the Duke's favorite son, Prince Charles (Michael Wilding). On the other hand, everybody dislikes Ella (Leslie Caron). She's dirty from cleaning soot and is derided as Cinder-Ella. She claims to one day live in the palace which only embitters the town. She lives under the rule of her stepmother Widow Sonder with her mean-spirited stepsisters Birdina and Serafina. She is befriended by Mrs. Toquet. Next, she encounters Prince Charles and his friend Kovin (Keenan Wynn) but he tells her a false identity as the palace cook's son. Charles is taken with her and invites her to the ball. With help from Toquet, she goes to the ball expecting to meet the son of the cook.With Leslie Caron as the star, there should be more dancing right from the start. It's almost an hour before Charles is teaching Cinderella how to dance. It's also odd that the dancing are mostly ballets done in dreamscape. Caron should just dance in the story itself. She should be dancing in the town, at the pond, or at home. Charles should be enchanted by her dancing. It's a missed opportunity.Another problem is that Ella is a slightly unpleasant character. She should probably be more demure. Most of the other adaptations are fair although it would be nice to have more humor. In the end, this pales in comparison to the Disney animated classic from five years earlier.

In some ways better than "Lili" but it still seems low-budget when compared to "Gigi". Beautiful story of "Ella", dubbed Cinder-Ella by a callous boy in town. Here she has a cinder-smudged face and is impish, as always, with two fantasy ballet sequences; as Leslie Caron was a great ballerina, after all. The first fantasy dance could be called "The Cook's Son Palace Ballet" and involves her visiting the palace to see the cook's son, who is actually the prince. It involves a great cooking sequence with a chorus line of ballerinas, and ends with Leslie dancing (on wire) and flying off the top of a huge wedding cake. The second dance is the "Dance of the Egyptian Princess" who in reality, is Ella's mistaken identity. This dance is not as imaginative, and is almost unnecessary to the story. A good supporting cast: Estelle Winwood as the funny absent-minded Mrs.Toquet (fairy godmother.) Elsa Lancaster as the mean stepmother. Amanda Blake as Birdena, one of the two very pretty but ugly-in-spirit stepsisters. A surprisingly good narration by Walter Pigeon. A good musical score. The movie falls down with too much dialog, not enough action, and no magical transformation of the pumpkin, mice, and lizards into coach, horses, and coachmen. (It all happens "off camera".) Where are the great special effects possible with "Famous Studios" and MGM Movie Magic? Missing scenes that should have filmed: Ella as a 6-year-old, running into the Prince for the first time. Her clothes turning back into rags, as the gown was "borrowed" and was (maybe) magic? The coach dissolving. (The "pumpkin" is shown smashed.) The happy-ever-after-ending seems slowly staged and less than triumphant but I am not sure why. The castle doesn't seem "grand" enough and very little of it is shown beyond the ballroom, kitchen and the Prince's study. Michael Wilding (or his dance double?) is o.k. but the whole production seems slow moving and lethargic. The "magic sparkle" of the fairy tale is somehow missing. A procession to the castle but no triumphant wedding? Worth watching just to see the captivating Leslie Caron dancing "on toe" once again. Not heroic or "dashing" enough for boys, so little girls might like it better. The "broadcast print" shows a lot of wear and tear and has not been well-restored.

Okay, I admit I have long had a soft spot for Michael Wilding--had a terrific crush on him when I was young and was delighted to see him in this film playing the Prince. He had a nice career going for himself in England before marrying Elizabeth and moving to the US. Hollywood didn't quite know what to do with him and he didn't have that many good or even likely roles here. In England he and Britain's favorite blonde, Anna Neagle, made several films in which she sang and the two of them danced (kind of a poor man's version of Rogers and Astaire), so he did dance in films before this picture, but I'm afraid he wasn't terrifically impressive as a dancer. But, boy, he had charm!When I first saw this film I thought it was a bit simplistic, but I was won over by Leslie Caron, a favorite of mine. And it was gratifying to see Michael Wilding, though he didn't get to do much here. Loved Estelle Winwood; she too, was always good. Altogether a very pleasant movie, pretty to watch, if just a little slow. (Or maybe it seemed that way because with this story, there are no surprises--you know how it will end!)

Leslie Caron was the perfect choice to play Cinderella, a scruffy, rebellious girl living with her step-mother and step-sisters, "not quite a servant and not quite a member of the family". Caron reunites here with much of the team from her best movie "Lili", and if the results are not quite as memorable it may be because the story has been exhausted. Still, director Charles Walters paces it carefully (some may say sluggishly) and keeps the outré magic of the tale to a minimum. The droll observation/narration is dryly amusing and the step-family isn't overly nasty to Caron (they treat her more like a black sheep than a housemaid). The MGM production is modest, but the cast is all quite colorful and the musical direction and balletic fantasy sequences are very good. Lovely, a bit tepid, but sweet and simple. **1/2 from ****