The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella is a 1976 cinematic musical retelling of the famous story of the siege of Orleans.
Just kidding. It’s a retelling of Cinderella.
There’s plenty to love about this film, starting (literally) with the spectacular Austrian scenery in its opening credits.
Its greatest strength is highly witty dialogue courtesy of the screenplay by director Bryan Forbes and songwriters Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman.[1]I’ve mentioned them on this blog before. Much, if not all, of the humor is actually aimed more at adults than at kids as you would expect. It doesn’t always make me laugh out loud, but it’s always got personality. In one of the first scenes, the king of the fictional kingdom of Euphrania (Michael Horden) is about to bestow a knighthood on his son, the prince (Richard Chamberlain), who protests he hasn’t earned it. “Nobody earns this,” his father retorts. “It’s given because I am the king, and I like it.” As part of the ceremony, the king kisses the newly minted knight on the cheek. “That’s the part I like best,” says the queen (an underused Lally Bowers) to her companion. “Sometimes I give medals to a whole regiment!”
Later in the movie, the king is told by his lord chamberlain (Kenneth More) that of the sixteen princesses he has invited to “a bride finding ball” for his son, only six will be coming. “Well, I think that’s a fair average, don’t you?” he says. To pay for the event, the king announces that he’ll put a tax on snobbery, something all his nobles will have to pay. In the next scene, Cinderella (Gemma Craven)’s stepmother (hilarious Margaret Lockwood) and stepsisters, Palatine (Sherrie Hewson) and Isobella (Rosalind Ayres), go to a dress shop to buy apparel for the ball, only to be told by the shopkeeper (Norman Bird) that he’s sold out. “Sold out?! What do you mean, you ridiculous man?” demands the outraged stepmother. “How can you be sold out when we have not purchased anything?”
It should be clear by now that the movie benefits from a great supporting cast. Not only a great cast of actors but a lot of fun roles for them to fill. In addition to those I’ve already mentioned there are Dame Edith Evans as the senile dowager queen, Julian Orchard as the prince’s mincing, sycophantic cousin, the duke of Montague, and, best of all, Annette Crosbie as Cinderella’s fairy godmother whom I can only describe as genteelly grumpy. This blog has covered several adaptations of this fairy tale and many of them have had fun takes on the fairy godmother, but this version might very well be my favorite. “I suppose I shall simply have to rise to the occasion again and do something spectacular,” she laments at one point, “and spectaculars always take so much out of me!” It doesn’t hurt that the fairy godmother sings Suddenly It Happens, the musical’s best attempt at a dramatic song.
The mention of the musical numbers brings me to the movie’s…less consistently strong points. A good rule of thumb for The Slipper and the Rose is that if a song is trying to be fun, like What Has Love Got to Do With Being Married? or What a Comforting Thing to Know, it’s fun but if it’s trying to be serious, like Once I Was Loved or I Can’t Forget the Melody, it’s painfully dull. There are exceptions to this rule, one of which I’ve already mentioned, but it generally holds true.[2]It’s also true, though not quite to the same extent, of the Sherman brothers’ 1973 musical adaptation of Tom Sawyer though thankfully that one has far fewer serious songs.
The movie’s biggest flaw is also, alas, the main thing that distinguishes it from other cinematic Cinderellas. It makes the prince the main character. Maybe there’s a way that could have been interesting and not just an arbitrary gimmick but if so, the film doesn’t find it. The prince doesn’t have a wicked stepfamily or a fairy godmother. There’s really no good reason he, rather than Cinderella, should be the center of the story. And his entire character pretty much consists of complaining about what a pain it is to be a prince and have to marry a princess. Nearly every line of dialogue he has is along those lines.[3]The fairy godmother’s dialogue also mostly consists of complaints, but we’re not necessarily meant to take them seriously and, anyway, they’re funnier. Even when his father’s royal ball to which he objected introduces him to Cinderella, he doesn’t apologize or rethink his earlier stance. Instead, he blames her mysterious disappearance on his father and continues to rant against him. If the writing weren’t so witty and Richard Chamberlain didn’t do his best to make the character likeable, he’d be downright insufferable. I’m not saying that having to make a politically advantageous marriage or even just endure the tedious formalities of royal life isn’t a real burden but there are others out there with worse problems like, I don’t know…Cinderella!
And the real shame is that Gemma Craven is so sweetly appealing as the famous heroine. I’d love it if she were the main focus of the movie.
All the prince’s talk about royal life not being as great as it’s cracked up to be might have seemed original back in 1976 but similar fictional prince and princesses since have made it conventional. And, honestly, I’d argue this take on Cinderella’s prince wasn’t even that unusual even back in the day. It’s pretty standard for retellings of this story to portray him as resenting his parents’ wishes for him to wed. While we’re told about the prince more than we actually see him in Disney’s 1950 animated Cinderella, what we hear of him and what we do see of him at the ball prior to Cinderella’s entrance suggest he’s a rebel, first refusing to marry and settle down and then refusing to marry any but one particular woman. All three movie versions of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, two of which came out before The Slipper and the Rose, despite their different scripts, have the prince view the ball as a dehumanizing contest with him as the prize. In Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998), not only does the prince not want to make a connubial alliance but he confides in the Cinderella character that he doesn’t want to become king at all and be perpetually “defined by (his) position.” She responds that countless lower-class people also suffer from being only seen as what they are, not who they are, and if he became king, he could help them. I wish The Slipper and the Rose went that route, but it doesn’t. To its credit though, it does have a subplot in which the prince bestows a knighthood on his companion-at-arms, John (Christopher Gable), allowing him to marry his sweetheart, Lady Caroline (Polly Williams.) That goes some way toward making the prince less of a whiner and more likeable.
However, the John-and-Caroline subplot also reflects the movie’s second biggest flaw. It’s two hours and twenty-six minutes and you really feel them. Even some of the more fun songs can drag. (The less said about the serious ones, the better.) To give you a really good idea of this, I’m going to have to spoil several scenes, so if you’re really interested in seeing the movie, skip to the last paragraph. In most Cinderella movies, this is how the prince finds Cinderella after the ball. We get a montage of the glass slipper being tried on all the single girls in the kingdom. It ends with the stepsisters’ turn. After they fail, Cinderella tries on the slipper, and it fits. She marries the prince and the movie is over. We get the standard montage including the stepsisters, but Cinderella strangely doesn’t even appear in the scene. Then three months pass! John and the prince talk about their love problems. We get a song and dance number, Position and Positioning. (To be fair, it’s pretty fun.) The prince knights John. Then the prince throws away the slipper in the despair. Cinderella’s dog-she has a dog in this version-brings it to her. She dances with it in a meadow where John and Caroline happen to be picnicking. They see her and go tell the prince. He rides up on his horse and kisses Cinderella. And the movie still isn’t wrapping up!
We’ve now reached The Slipper and the Rose‘s biggest addition to the traditional fairy tale. After she’s been presented to the court, the lord chamberlain privately and gently explains to Cinderella that if the prince doesn’t make a politically advantageous marriage, the kingdom will be consumed by war. Tearfully, she agrees to give him up. This scene features some beautiful acting from both Kenneth More and Gemma Craven. I especially like the moment where Cinderella briefly appears bitter (“You have forgotten nothing then.”) but then sees the chamberlain’s regret and implicitly apologizes. (“I thank you for bringing such tidings with tact and understanding.”) It also leads to the movie’s second-best attempt at a dramatic song, Tell Him Anything (But Not That I Love Him.)[4]By the way, if you’re wondering about the rose in the film’s title, at the beginning of the song, Cinderella stares at a bouquet of roses from one of which a petal dramatically drops. … Continue reading
But I almost feel like the scene makes too good a case against the marriage between the lovers. Sure, it’s sad if they don’t end up together, but isn’t the well-being of a whole nation of citizens more important than the happiness of just two?[5]The position the movie itself takes is a little hard to interpret. During the scene itself of Cinderella agreeing to give up the prince, it feels like we’re supposed to admire her, but the … Continue reading Maybe the problem is that the romance between this Cinderella and her prince, which mostly involves staring into each other’s faces, just isn’t moving enough for us to forget about all the realistic problems with the match. Having established that either the couple can be together, or their kingdom must be ravaged by war, the movie then resolves this seemingly insurmountable dilemma with a deus ex machina.[6]What happens to absolve the prince of his responsibilities is arguably kind of creepy if you think about it. But in all fairness, if you have a problem with a deus ex machina, you’re probably not the target audience for Cinderella.
If you’re not interested in Cinderella adaptations and don’t appreciate these lengthy, old school movie musicals, this one probably won’t make you a convert.[7]Unless maybe your problem with Cinderella is that it doesn’t have enough court intrigue or political satire. But if you are part of the target audience, give it a chance. Its charms may reward you and even the things I’ve described as flaws at least help it stand out as interesting.
References
↑1 | I’ve mentioned them on this blog before. |
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↑2 | It’s also true, though not quite to the same extent, of the Sherman brothers’ 1973 musical adaptation of Tom Sawyer though thankfully that one has far fewer serious songs. |
↑3 | The fairy godmother’s dialogue also mostly consists of complaints, but we’re not necessarily meant to take them seriously and, anyway, they’re funnier. |
↑4 | By the way, if you’re wondering about the rose in the film’s title, at the beginning of the song, Cinderella stares at a bouquet of roses from one of which a petal dramatically drops. That’s the only justification for the title I can remember. I don’t get it either. |
↑5 | The position the movie itself takes is a little hard to interpret. During the scene itself of Cinderella agreeing to give up the prince, it feels like we’re supposed to admire her, but the fairy godmother scolds her for it later. |
↑6 | What happens to absolve the prince of his responsibilities is arguably kind of creepy if you think about it. |
↑7 | Unless maybe your problem with Cinderella is that it doesn’t have enough court intrigue or political satire. |