THE GLASS SLIPPER
US, 1954, 94 minutes, Colour.
Leslie Caron, Michael Wilding, Keenan Wynn, Estelle Winwood, Elsa Lanchester, Barry Jones.
Directed by Charles Walters.
The Glass Slipper is a musical version of the Cinderella story. The Cinderella Story was presented in a Disney animated form in the fifties, and in a full scale musical version in the seventies in The Slipper and the Rose. This musical film depends for its charm on the presence of Leslie Caron as Cinderella. There are ballet sequences for which this actress was noted in the fifties. Michael Wilding is the Prince Charming. It is a very pleasant re-working of the old story, slight but lightly presented. It is enjoyable for all.
1. What was the constant appeal of the fairy tale? The story ingredients? The characters? The themes? The truth about human nature and the world communicated through such basic stories?
2. The appeal and the charm about this film: colour. sets and settings, costumes music. dancing and song?
3. The humour and the irony of the commentary? The purpose in the narration, the characterisation, the pointing to the moral?
4. How satisfying was the treatment of the Cinderella story? The realism of setting, characters and motivation? The final touches of magic, of the pumpkin and the fairy god-mother disappearing?
5. How attractive was Mrs. Toquet as the fairy godmother? The comedy in her eccentricity? Her friendliness. stealing things? Her enjoying the sounds of words? Her proverbs? Her friendliness and comforting of Cinderella? The effect on Cinderella?
6. How attractive was Leslie Caron as Cinderella? A credible Cinderella, dirty and difficult, boyish looking and laughed at, imposed on by the stepmother and sisters? Cinderella as a victim of the town and her family? The story of her mother's death?
7. Audience response to the prince? Was he a prince charming? His background,, upbringing.. status in the village. education and reputation? The response of the village. the fuss of the stepmother and the sisters? Ella's disappointment in not seeing him?
8. The importance of the prince going for his walk to the secret place? The story of his memory of the girl and her eyes? The importance of the encounter and Ella's becoming a friend of the prince? His disguise. his teaching her how to dance? The blossoming of love? Her fear?
9. The contribution of the ballet and the song sequences? The theme music? The prince singing it? Learning to dance to the melody? The ballet and the fantasies, the sitting on the throne, the ballet of the pastry cook, the final ballet of the Egyptian princess and the lament? Their style, atmosphere?
1O. The atmosphere of the town: gossip, dressing for the ball, the pretentious attitudes? The character of the step mother and the sisters? Their vanity and the commentator's comment? Cousin Lulu?
11. Ella's happiness at the invitation to the ball? Her regrets at not being able to go, fantasies? The humour of Mrs Toquet and the dress, the carriage?
12. The preparations, her arrival? The impression she made at the ball? Happiness for herself, revelation of the truth, the king's response, the atmosphere of the sisters and the townspeople gossipping?
13. The sadness for Ella as regards the gossip and its effect? Hurt, her fantasies, the ballet of the Egyptian princess?
14. How necessary was the happy ending? How satisfying?
15. The values about human nature, rich and poor, truth, love and dislike?
