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butterflykikiTell me someone else has seen and loved this cinematic 'masterpiece' (in the same way Jupiter Ascending is a 'masterpiece', okay?). I hope so, because I'm about to blither about it for a bit. I just re-found this on Amazon Prime and have rented it, and I'm rewatching it for the first time in aaaaages. Maybe 10 or 15 so years, at least, and I didn't watch the whole thing then. Comparing little 11-or-12-year-old Kiki's reactions to seeing it on TV, (maybe 13? Hmm) and analyzing it again now.
No offense to the Leslie Ann Down live-action version, which was lovely, but definitely aimed at the grade-schooler set. This version has REALISM, don't you know. It's the Seventies, the cinema was all about REALISM. I loved this with my whole heart when I first saw it. It's a musical, it's a romance, it's got Richard Chamberlain (who was very big at the time, even though I hadn't seen Shogun and there was no way my parents were going to let me watch The Thorn Birds) and the best fairy godmother ever, in Annette Crosbie. It has a cute little Toto-like dog, it has some terrible songs but gorgeous sets and costumes; it has some ear-wormy songs and is way, way too long at 2 hours 22 minutes. Mostly because parts of it DRAG like you would not believe.
For instance: I timed it last night, and the opening credits sequence is five dialogue-less, plot-less SWOOPING MUSIC and SNOWY LANDSCAPES minutes long. Nobody would put up with that these days. I think the director saw Doctor Zhivago too many times, and was determined to try and give this movie the same sense of scope. Which is ridic, given how Gilbert & Sullivan parts of it are, but it does, at least, establish that the beginning of the movie is set in winter. This story apparently takes place over months, unlike every version of Cinderella I had seen up to this point, which were all compressed into maybe 3 days. So see: realism! I was impressed. I was easy to impress back then.
We don't meet Cinderella until 20 minutes in, no, the first 15 minutes (after all that snow) are all about the Prince returning from what was supposed to be a getting-engaged-to-a-princess trip with the news that no, he didn't want to marry someone who has the vapors and twitters a lot. Or was bald. And toothless. I liked then that he disliked her personality first, and was leery of her looks second (apparently). The implication seemed to be that the neighboring princess miiight have been too old, I think, for the job. Prince Edward's parents are just so puzzled that he wants to marry for love, like their kid wants to be a painter or an artist or a unicorn, something people just don't do. I looked it up, and Chamberlain was in his forties when he made this, but either due to good make-up, camera-social-distancing, or a deal with Lucifer, he can pass for mid-to-late-twenties for most of this movie.
His best friend is his valet, John (Christopher Gable), who I never see valet-ing during the movie, and you wouldn't know he was a servant if there wasn't an entire sub-plot constructed around it. Good singer, good dancer. They just seem like good buds-- which leads to one of my favorite numbers, these two guys dancing and tumbling and acrobat-ing around the Royal crypt and singing about how it's A Comforting Thing to Know that you've got a family plot lined up with your name on it already. Another nice thing about this number: Cinderella is eavesdropping just outside, so you get the impression that she could have gotten a crush on the prince for his dancing skills and sense of humor long before the whole ball thing happens. This sequence happens in the spring, so see, time is moving.
Speaking of Cinders: Gemma Craven is tiny. Tiny! That was the first thing to hit me about her, because she's a good 6" shorter than her stepmom and stepsisters, so it looks even meaner when they almost literally kick her downstairs to the cellar/kitchen to be their servant. They just buried her dad, and her stepmom wore scarlet to the funeral. Subtle, this ain't. I think they swiped certain elements from the British panto of Cinderella? (This is a British production, if I didn't mention it before). Craven did a good job in being Cinderella, I think, and the character seems like a nice person trapped in a situation where it's be a servant or live in a rat-infested orphanage. But she does let a lot of things happen to her, and doesn't take as much initiative as I'd like. Compared to Drew Barrymore's Danielle, she's not impressive.
But! That is because her Fairy Godmother is here to be practical and kind and whimsical. First thing she does? Make sure that Cinderella's over-load of chores are done when her back is turned, without taking credit. I WANT TO BE HER, OKAY? This is the kind of thing a fairy godmother should help with! Second thing? Gives her a dog! Lonely alone Cinderella now has someone to hug and talk to no matter what! Granted, that dog is the Fairy Godmother's familiar who's there to look out for Cinderella, but pfftt, he's still a friend. Third thing? Makes the dresses that Cinderella can't, even though she gave it a damn good try, for her step-family. They gave her cast-offs to re-design at literally the last hour, when she's never designed or created a dress in her life. How did they *think* that was gonna turn out? I would think it was an excuse to boot her out, but that would be giving them too much credit. (Honestly, these people are not just mean, but stupid. Craven occasionally has this tiny little smile of satisfaction when they trip or fight, to let you know she's not free of schadenfreude and is a real person who can't stand these three, not a saint.)
And then. And then! The best sequence of transformation stuff. I still remember being amazed (not knowing as much about cut-away camera shots and costuming tricks then) at how the Fairy Godmother looks away to (apparently) concentrate on making a dress for Cinderella on a dressmaker's dummy (only to have a suit of armor materialize).... and then she turns around, and Cinderella is wearing a gooooorgeous silvery-pink confection of a dress, where it seemed like two seconds before she was wearing her usual gray-blue servant dress. So. Impressed.
More panto stuff comes in here, I think, with tiny ballet-dancing mice acquiring outfits, getting bigger over a few turns, then turning into horses (that was just creepy, though, god, nothing with mouse-or-rat eyes should be human-sized) and the frog-coachman leaping off a lily-pad onto a bridge, now fully human and uniformed. And the song for this bit is lovely, and much more grown up than "When You Wish Upon a Star". (It's called "Suddenly", and it recurred later in the film too. Which I was again, easily impressed to recognize again. It was the horns section.)
Another character, who might be from the panto? The prince's cousin the Duke of Montague, who is... dramatic? Creepy? No, not quite creepy, but he's very... something. EXTRA. YES. that's the word. He's very extra, and he sucks up a lot to the king, but seems to mean it. And he is beyond thrilled when the bride-finding ball is announced, in comparison to Prince Edward, who is appalled. And acting like his parents are setting him up on The Bachelor because they're convinced he can't get a date, I swear to everything. His objections and attitude are exactly the objections and attitude any reasonable person would have if their parents sent in their nomination for that show, but couched in romantic/idealized terms. Meanwhile, Montague is just deliriously hopeful that some rejected nubile maiden will like his legs if the Prince doesn't want her. It is not hilarious, but it is. Something.
More on this later! I must go back to working/pretending-to-work.
No offense to the Leslie Ann Down live-action version, which was lovely, but definitely aimed at the grade-schooler set. This version has REALISM, don't you know. It's the Seventies, the cinema was all about REALISM. I loved this with my whole heart when I first saw it. It's a musical, it's a romance, it's got Richard Chamberlain (who was very big at the time, even though I hadn't seen Shogun and there was no way my parents were going to let me watch The Thorn Birds) and the best fairy godmother ever, in Annette Crosbie. It has a cute little Toto-like dog, it has some terrible songs but gorgeous sets and costumes; it has some ear-wormy songs and is way, way too long at 2 hours 22 minutes. Mostly because parts of it DRAG like you would not believe.
For instance: I timed it last night, and the opening credits sequence is five dialogue-less, plot-less SWOOPING MUSIC and SNOWY LANDSCAPES minutes long. Nobody would put up with that these days. I think the director saw Doctor Zhivago too many times, and was determined to try and give this movie the same sense of scope. Which is ridic, given how Gilbert & Sullivan parts of it are, but it does, at least, establish that the beginning of the movie is set in winter. This story apparently takes place over months, unlike every version of Cinderella I had seen up to this point, which were all compressed into maybe 3 days. So see: realism! I was impressed. I was easy to impress back then.
We don't meet Cinderella until 20 minutes in, no, the first 15 minutes (after all that snow) are all about the Prince returning from what was supposed to be a getting-engaged-to-a-princess trip with the news that no, he didn't want to marry someone who has the vapors and twitters a lot. Or was bald. And toothless. I liked then that he disliked her personality first, and was leery of her looks second (apparently). The implication seemed to be that the neighboring princess miiight have been too old, I think, for the job. Prince Edward's parents are just so puzzled that he wants to marry for love, like their kid wants to be a painter or an artist or a unicorn, something people just don't do. I looked it up, and Chamberlain was in his forties when he made this, but either due to good make-up, camera-social-distancing, or a deal with Lucifer, he can pass for mid-to-late-twenties for most of this movie.
His best friend is his valet, John (Christopher Gable), who I never see valet-ing during the movie, and you wouldn't know he was a servant if there wasn't an entire sub-plot constructed around it. Good singer, good dancer. They just seem like good buds-- which leads to one of my favorite numbers, these two guys dancing and tumbling and acrobat-ing around the Royal crypt and singing about how it's A Comforting Thing to Know that you've got a family plot lined up with your name on it already. Another nice thing about this number: Cinderella is eavesdropping just outside, so you get the impression that she could have gotten a crush on the prince for his dancing skills and sense of humor long before the whole ball thing happens. This sequence happens in the spring, so see, time is moving.
Speaking of Cinders: Gemma Craven is tiny. Tiny! That was the first thing to hit me about her, because she's a good 6" shorter than her stepmom and stepsisters, so it looks even meaner when they almost literally kick her downstairs to the cellar/kitchen to be their servant. They just buried her dad, and her stepmom wore scarlet to the funeral. Subtle, this ain't. I think they swiped certain elements from the British panto of Cinderella? (This is a British production, if I didn't mention it before). Craven did a good job in being Cinderella, I think, and the character seems like a nice person trapped in a situation where it's be a servant or live in a rat-infested orphanage. But she does let a lot of things happen to her, and doesn't take as much initiative as I'd like. Compared to Drew Barrymore's Danielle, she's not impressive.
But! That is because her Fairy Godmother is here to be practical and kind and whimsical. First thing she does? Make sure that Cinderella's over-load of chores are done when her back is turned, without taking credit. I WANT TO BE HER, OKAY? This is the kind of thing a fairy godmother should help with! Second thing? Gives her a dog! Lonely alone Cinderella now has someone to hug and talk to no matter what! Granted, that dog is the Fairy Godmother's familiar who's there to look out for Cinderella, but pfftt, he's still a friend. Third thing? Makes the dresses that Cinderella can't, even though she gave it a damn good try, for her step-family. They gave her cast-offs to re-design at literally the last hour, when she's never designed or created a dress in her life. How did they *think* that was gonna turn out? I would think it was an excuse to boot her out, but that would be giving them too much credit. (Honestly, these people are not just mean, but stupid. Craven occasionally has this tiny little smile of satisfaction when they trip or fight, to let you know she's not free of schadenfreude and is a real person who can't stand these three, not a saint.)
And then. And then! The best sequence of transformation stuff. I still remember being amazed (not knowing as much about cut-away camera shots and costuming tricks then) at how the Fairy Godmother looks away to (apparently) concentrate on making a dress for Cinderella on a dressmaker's dummy (only to have a suit of armor materialize).... and then she turns around, and Cinderella is wearing a gooooorgeous silvery-pink confection of a dress, where it seemed like two seconds before she was wearing her usual gray-blue servant dress. So. Impressed.
More panto stuff comes in here, I think, with tiny ballet-dancing mice acquiring outfits, getting bigger over a few turns, then turning into horses (that was just creepy, though, god, nothing with mouse-or-rat eyes should be human-sized) and the frog-coachman leaping off a lily-pad onto a bridge, now fully human and uniformed. And the song for this bit is lovely, and much more grown up than "When You Wish Upon a Star". (It's called "Suddenly", and it recurred later in the film too. Which I was again, easily impressed to recognize again. It was the horns section.)
Another character, who might be from the panto? The prince's cousin the Duke of Montague, who is... dramatic? Creepy? No, not quite creepy, but he's very... something. EXTRA. YES. that's the word. He's very extra, and he sucks up a lot to the king, but seems to mean it. And he is beyond thrilled when the bride-finding ball is announced, in comparison to Prince Edward, who is appalled. And acting like his parents are setting him up on The Bachelor because they're convinced he can't get a date, I swear to everything. His objections and attitude are exactly the objections and attitude any reasonable person would have if their parents sent in their nomination for that show, but couched in romantic/idealized terms. Meanwhile, Montague is just deliriously hopeful that some rejected nubile maiden will like his legs if the Prince doesn't want her. It is not hilarious, but it is. Something.
More on this later! I must go back to working/pretending-to-work.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-30 11:27 pm (UTC)I think I might have to try and find a way to watch it, and introduce my twins to it.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-01 05:02 pm (UTC)"Protocol" is still a freaking ear-worm, though, damnit.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-01 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-01 04:56 pm (UTC)