40 Films in Robotech: Cinderella (1950)

    

I was surprised to see how many things Cinderella and Robotech had in common...

 ROBOTECH MENTION:  

In Robotech Episode 33 entitled Rainy Night, Claudia Grant refers to Rick Hunter as Lisa Hayes’ “Prince Charming” – the romantic male lead in the film Cinderella. 

In the next generation in the ongoing Robotech wars (Episode 52 – Love Song), Southern Cross pilot Marie Crystal refers to her on-again/off-again boyfriend Sean Phillips as “Prince Charming” and refers to herself as “Cinderella”…

 SYNOPSIS:  

Cinderella Disney DVD (2012) case synopsis:  “Cinderella has faith her dreams of a better life will come true. With help from her loyal mice friends and a wave of her Fairy Godmother’s wand, Cinderella’s rags are magically turned into a glorious gown and off she goes to the Royal Ball to meet her Prince. But when the clock strikes midnight, the spell is broken, leaving only a single glass slipper…the only key to the ultimate fairy-tale ending!”

A scene from Cinderella…

 AWARDS & KUDOS:  

The Berlin International Film Festival awarded Cinderella the Golden Berlin Bear Award for Best Musical 1951 and the Audience Poll: Grand Bronze Plate Award. The Venice Film Festival awarded Walt Disney the 1950 Special Jury Prize for Cinderella. In 1999, Lucille Bliss (Cinderella voice actor for the character Anastasia) won the Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award at the Young Artist Awards. In 2018, Cinderella won National Film Registry from the Nation Film Preservation Board and the 2018 OFTA Film Hall of Fame Motion Picture Award from the Online Film & Television Association. 

 OTHER COOL FACTS:  

In Eric Smoodin’s #classicfilmreading book Animating Culture – Hollywood Cartoons from the Sound Era (1993), the author shared some supportive reviews of Cinderella and several examples of how critics did not like Walt Disney’s increased use of human characters in his animated features (both live action and animated humans) in the late 1940s/early 1950s.  Smoodin wrote: “In 1950, in a fairly positive review of Cinderella, the unnamed Time critic assured readers early on that the film was ‘unalloyed make-believe, without the disenchanting sight of a single photographed human face.’ Even animated humans, drawn and painted rather than ‘live actors’ were grounds for disapproval by the critics. Cinderella disappointed the film reviewer for The Saturday Review in part because the cartoon presented ‘an unusually large number of human characters.’ Time faulted the same film because the main characters – the prince, the witch, and ‘the blonde heroine’ – ‘are drawn in an attempt at literal likeness that the best technique of animation never brings off without a certain stiffness.’”

 ROBOTECH REASON:  

Cinderella and Robotech share several similarities: both have glass slippers (Robotech Episode 79 Frostbite), objects “transforming” into vehicles, and an ending involving a storybook being closed (Macross ends with a photo album being closed). 

To read my ⭐⭐⭐ ⭐ (out of a possible 5 star) rating Cinderella (1950) on Letterboxd, click here.