Cinderella (1950 film)

Cinderella
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Story by
Based on"Cinderella"
by Charles Perrault
Produced by
Starring
Edited byDonald Halliday
Music by
Production
company
Distributed byRKO Radio Pictures
Release dates
  • February 15, 1950 (1950-02-15) (Boston)
  • March 4, 1950 (1950-03-04) (United States)
Running time
76 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2.2 million[1]
Box office$182 million[2]

Cinderella is a 1950 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale, it features supervision by Ben Sharpsteen. The film was directed by Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, and Clyde Geronimi. The film features the voices of Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Rhoda Williams, James MacDonald, and Luis van Rooten.

During the early 1940s, Walt Disney Productions had suffered financially after losing connections to the European film markets due to the outbreak of World War II. Because of this, the studio endured commercial failures such as Pinocchio, Fantasia (both 1940) and Bambi (1942), all of which would later become more successful with several re-releases in theaters and on home video. By 1947, the studio was over $4 million in debt and was on the verge of bankruptcy. Walt Disney and his animators returned to feature film production in 1948 after producing a string of package films with the idea of adapting Charles Perrault's Cendrillon into an animated film.[3]

Cinderella was released to theatres on February 15, 1950. It received critical acclaim and was a box office success, making it Disney's biggest hit since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and helping reverse the studio's fortunes.[3] It also received three Academy Award nominations, including Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, Best Sound Recording, and Best Original Song for "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo".

The film was followed by two direct-to-video sequels, Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002) and Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007), and a live-action remake in 2015. In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4]

  1. ^ Barrier 1999, p. 401.
  2. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (October 27, 2003). "Cartoon Coffers – Top-Grossing Disney Animated Features at the Worldwide B.O." Variety. p. 6. Retrieved November 7, 2021 – via The Free Library.
  3. ^ a b "25 Things You Never Knew About Disney's 'Cinderella'". Moviefone. February 15, 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2017.
  4. ^ McNary, Dave (December 12, 2018). "'Brokeback Mountain,' 'Jurassic Park,' 'My Fair Lady' Added to National Film Registry". Variety. Retrieved January 5, 2019.