Why Cinderella (1997) Is Really As Wonderful As It Seems
There’s something about Cinderella (1997) that actually makes you question if there’s more to the “Disney magic” schtick than a set of really good PR initiatives or brand-savvy emotional puppeteering. Newly available to stream today on Disney+, there’s something so warm, so sweet, so endearing about the classic rags-to-riches story as adapted in this particular TV movie. We all know the plot of Cinderella, so lets talk about how this version is so immensely superior and why you need to hustle on over to Disney+ to watch it.
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To start, there’s the most legendary aspect of the movie: the cast. Top billing goes to Whitney “The Voice” Houston as the larger than life Godmother and Brandy “The Vocal Bible” Norwood as Cinderella. It was a match metaphorically made in Heaven but terrestrially made by Whitney, who hand-picked the teen idol for the role. The dearly departed Voice let her light shine through this role, giving one of her best vocal performances ever, absolutely devouring the movie’s final song, “There is Music in You.” “Impossible/Its Possible” is a power duet for the ages, and I’ll never get over the injustice of Whitney and Brandy’s record labels being unable to finalize a contractual agreement and thus robbing the world of a soundtrack album.
In this day and age, I probably don’t need to explain what Brandy in this iconic role meant—and still means—for little Black girls. One of my favorite details in the movie is the fact that when Cinderella has her big makeover to snag the Prince at the ball, the Godmother doesn’t rid her of her braids but rather creates ringlets out of them. A typical movie typical makeover would have straightened her hair to demonstrate newfound beauty and sophistication (hi, The Princess Diaries), but little things like indicating that Brandy’s braids are already elegant exemplify the movie’s celebration of multicultural beauty.
Visually, the cartoon version simply can’t compete where it doesn’t compare. The overall design of Cinderella (1997) elevated its familiar story content, with a palette that shifted with and defined the characters; the Prince and Cinderella are both introduced at a warmly colored outdoor market wearing muted browns and warm tones, highlighting their states of discontent with their respective lives and their shared unpretentious sensibilities. The Stepmother’s house can best be described as art nouveau on acid, though Cinderella’s “own little corner” of the house is—you guessed it—full of neutral tones. The ball is blanketed with purples, blues, and pinks to match the royals’ visual motif.
The Stepmother (played by Broadway legend Bernadette Peters) and stepsisters (Veanne Cox and Natalie Desselle Reid) spend the movie decked out in ruffles, feathers, sparkles, and wacky hair accessories, their over-the-top wardrobe reflecting their abrasive, demanding personalities. Bernadette in particular is cunning, hilarious, and tragic in equal parts. The addition of the song “Falling In Love With Love” imbues the Stepmother with a very human sadness through humor in a way only Bernadette could pull off, revealing that she gives her daughters such harsh love advice (“we hide our flaws until after the wedding,” yikes!) because she, too, once fell in love with the idea of love and got burned. Camp of the highest quality executed by one of the greats.
The cast also includes Paolo Montalban as the Prince (aka His Royal Highness Christopher Rupert Windemere Vladimir Carl Alexander Francois Reginald Lancelot Herman Gregory James, and I swear I typed that from memory), Disney’s first Filipino character and only Asian prince to date. Devastatingly handsome, he’s probably the only Disney Prince that could convincingly snag a girl via love at first sight. The Prince, King, and Queen spend the film decked out in purple, pink, and blue jewel tones, very heavy on the regal. One of my all-time favorite pieces of movie trivia comes from anointed EGOT Whoopi Goldberg as the Queen: given this was a made for TV movie, they were going to give Whoopi fake costume jewelry, but she refused. If she was going to be a Queen, she had to have genuine glamour, and thus personally asked Harry Winston to loan the movie around $60 million worth of jewelry!
And then there’s the heart of the movie: the romance between Cinderella and the Prince, which largely plays out through song. They have no less than three love ballads, which (hot take alert!) all happen to be the movie’s best tracks. They come out of the gate swinging with the very aptly titled “The Sweetest Sounds,” a longing ballad between the Prince and Cinderella and the impetus for their farmers market meet-cute. The scene quickly establishes that Cinderella is Not Like Other Girls—when the Prince assumes every girl wants to be treated like a princess, she replies “no, like a person. With kindness and respect.”
Stilted pokes at feminist-adjacent rhetoric aside, there’s a cute sensitivity between the two of them that I’ve seen in precious few Disney movies. The following ballad, “Ten Minutes Ago,” is probably one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s magnum opi, with a fairly short and simple lyrical motif that makes every word and every note count and a lovely ballroom dance (let the abysmal quality of the clip below encourage you to stream the sparkling HD version on Disney+):
I have found her, she's an angel
With the dust of the stars in her eyes
We are dancing, we are flying
And she's taking me back to the skies
In the arms of my love, I'm flying
Over mountain and meadow and glen
And I like it so well
That for all I can tell
I may never come down again
I may never come down to earth again
Completing the trifecta is “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful,” the love ballad that plays at the (literal) 11th hour. It questions the veracity of the whole love-at-first-sight thing (“are you the sweet invention of a lover’s dream / or are you really as wonderful as you seem?”) and has a literally pitch perfect blend of ‘90s R&B rhythm and classic Rodgers and Hammerstein showtune arrangement. They performed it just as flawlessly live on The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and their chemistry reminds me how extremely baffled I was that they didn’t end up married in real life.
When I was little, I watched this movie religiously on VHS, and when that became a prehistoric piece of technology I watched the YouTube rips that Disney somehow let exist in their full copyright-violating glory (those videos have mysteriously vanished after Disney announced the movie’s streaming debut). I couldn’t be happier that this once-cult classic will become a household staple for a new generation of children—at least, for children with impeccable taste.
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