Cinderella (DVD)

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In addition, disc one contains "Cinderella Stories," a thirty-three minute presentation of ESPN hosted by Joe Namath, which looks back on Cinderella stories in sports, things like the '69 New York Jets, the 1980 Olympic ice hockey team, and soccer superstar Pele. Then, there's a newly made, live-action music video, "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes," sung by the Disney Channel "Circle of Stars." Its updated musical style seemed to me totally out of character for the movie, and I hated it. To make matters worse, there's a three-minute making-of featurette of the music video that goes with it. Finally, there's yet another newly made music video, this one a compilation of animated Disney princesses in "Everybody Can Be a Princess."

Disc two includes a multitude of additional bonus items, divided into four categories. The first group contains two deleted scenes totaling about nine minutes, including an introduction. They are titled "The Cinderella Work Song" and "Dancing on a Cloud," both with songs and music done to rough sketches and drawings. The second category is "Music and More," wherein we find a six-minute excerpt from an early TV show hosted by Perry Como, where some of the music is premiered; then, there's the "Cinderella" title song done in an original demo recording; seventeen minutes of unused songs, also in original demo form (including "Sing a Little, Dream a Little," "I'm in the Middle of a Muddle," "The Mice Song," "The Dress My Mother Wore," "Dancing on a Cloud," "I Lost My Heart at the Ball," and "The Face That I See at Night"); and three excerpts from 1948 and 1950 radio programs that feature music and voices from "Cinderella." The third category is "Games," which contains "House of Royalty" and "Princess Pajama Jam," plus a DVD-ROM design studio, "The Royal Life." They are mainly directed at young girls.

For adults, the fourth category, "Backstage Disney," may be of the greatest interest. Here we find the centerpiece of the bonus items, the documentary "From Rags to Riches: The Making of Cinderella." It's thirty-eight minutes long and divided into four chapters that cover the history of the movie, the animation, the voices, and the music. Interestingly, in 1950 Disney hadn't had a feature hit movie since "Snow White"; not even "Pinocchio" or "Fantasia" had shown a profit in their initial releases, so "Cinderella" was something of a gamble for the studio. If it didn't succeed, Uncle Walt was ready to throw in the towel on feature films. In addition, we find "The Cinderella That Almost Was," fourteen more minutes of background on the making of the film (Walt Disney had been developing the "Cinderella" idea for almost thirty years before he brought it to the screen); a storyboard-to-film comparison of the opening sequence; "A Tribute to Disney's Nine Old Men," the original animation team; "The Art of Mary Blair," the studio's art director; "Laugh-O-Gram: Cinderella," from 1922, a very different, very early Disney view of the story; a Mickey Mouse Club excerpt from 1958 with Helen Stanley; still frame and slide-show galleries of artwork; six original and reissue trailers; and a request for involvement in various charitable organizations in "Dreams Come True: See How You Can Get Involved." In case you get lost in all of this material, there's an index on the menu screen, too.

Both discs, plus a handy DVD guide of chapters and contents, come housed in a slim-line keep case, further contained in a handsome cardboard slipcover with a foldout front cover. It's another of Disney's elite Platinum-Edition packages. And this time the guidebook is easier to follow than some previous Disney inserts. Also, let me assure everyone that the words "First Time on DVD" and "Limited Time Only" you see on our own cover art do not appear on the actual product. The Disney publicity department only made the cover art that you see available to the press, which is why it's all over the Net, I suppose in an effort to encourage people to buy now and avoid regretting it later. The Disney studios have always put their major films into limited release, a fact that some potential buyers have never grasped, let alone agreed with.

For more on "Cinderella," see "Cinderella Story: A Teleconference with Ilene Woods and Don Hahn."

Parting Thoughts:
I find it difficult to understand the relative neglect the Disney people have shown this picture; we're eight years into the DVD era, and "Cinderella" is only just now showing up on disc. But maybe that's the plight of many overlooked, underappreciated works of art that only a few fans consider "classics" until the rest of the world catches up. When such works do get rediscovered, though, a whole new generation awakens to the pleasure. Let's hope the DVD incarnation of "Cinderella" helps the movie maintain its public image for a while longer, at least until the Disney PR department pulls it from the shelves for eventual rerelease.

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