Silent Film of the Month: Cinderella (1922)
Runtime: 7 minutes. Studio: Laugh O Gram Studios. Director: Walt Disney. Writer: Walt Pfeiffer. Animators: Rudolph Ising, Hugh Harmon, Carmen Maxwell, Ub Iwerks, Lorey Tauge, Otto Walliman.
It is February the month of romance, and what romance story is better known than that of Cinderella (ok Romeo and Juliet, but I digress). The magic of this story was never a secret to filmmakers. This was true since the silent era. The earliest film version I can think of is the 1899 film Cendrillon directed by George Melies. Many many more would follow. Easily the most famous movie version is the 1950 animated Disney film. However that was not the first time Walt Disney's name was attached to a film version of Cinderella. In 1922 Walt directed a short cartoon simply titled Cinderella.
Walt Disney began his film career in 1919. At this time he worked for the Kanas City Film Ad Company, making animated commercials that would play in Kanas City movie theaters. Here he met and worked with Ub Iwerks. Ub Iwerks would be one of Walt's main animators on many of his silent films and later on many early Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies cartoons. Ub would leave Walt to head his own cartoon studio. However when that didn't work out as planned Walt welcomed him back and Ub helped on the special effects for such films as Mary Poppins, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Lady and the Tramp and yes the 1950 Disney film version of Cinderella (on a departure from Disney he also did special effects for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds). After this Walt went to did more ads (as well as animated inserts) for Newman's Theater. His success here lead him to start his own series of theatrical shorts called Laugh O Grams, of which Cinderella (1922) was part of.
The Laugh O Grams cartoons were modern day (okay... 1920's) comedic variations on classic fairytales. Unlike later fairytale films Walt would work on there was very little sentiment in these films, instead they went for pure comedy and often times they succeeded quite well.
The film follows the Cinderella story much the way we know it, except for taking place in modern day. A ball is thrown. Cinderella is told she can't go. Her fairy godmother shows up, and dresses her like a flapper and gives her a nice car, out of thin air, which her cat drives (okay maybe that's a little different). She falls in love with the prince, but has to leave before her flapper clothes turn into rags. The prince finds the shoe she left behind, and finds her using it. And they live happily ever after.
Since this film is a comedy, while the later Disney version is not, I'm am not going to compare them much because that would be pointless (besides this film is 7 minutes while the later film is 74). This film is not a consistently laugh out loud comedy, but it is still a very charming one. There are however some quite funny jokes. On involving a duck is so strange it cracks me up every time I watch this. A scene with the prince hunting is also pretty darn funny. Most of all though this film just has a great sense of energy that just makes it a joy to watch.
So this is not only a fascinating look into the early career of Walt Disney, but a very entertaining film in it's own right.
-Michael J. Ruhland
Resources Used Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013014/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_23 http://www.jbkaufman.com/cutting-room-floor/silent-cinderella