![]() The diverse cast of "Cinderella," from left: Jason Alexander, Paolo Montalban, Brandy Norwood, Whitney Houston, Bernadette Peters, Natalie Desselle Reid and Veanne Cox. More movie musicals could stand to trim skippable songs and unnecessary dialogue to channel the high-wire momentum of the stage, rather than try to replicate it exactly. Yet the movie is still less than 90 minutes long, thanks to its lean and efficient script: The cruelty of Peters' stepmother and the magnificence of Houston's fairy godmother are communicated with just a scattering of lines, leaving plenty of time for Goldberg's recurring wordless bit. These songs - along with the hopeful opening number "The Sweetest Sounds," reallocated from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "No Strings" - were added for the screen, a common practice of musical adaptations, but none feel extraneous in fact, they've since become "Cinderella" canon. And of course, superstar Houston gets a soaring solo in "There’s Music in You" to close out the show. "Falling in Love With Love," pulled from the lesser-known Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart show "The Boys From Syracuse," fills out Peters' villainous matriarch while showcasing her comedic sensibilities and Tony-winning vocals. As Shondaland's oral history of the movie notes, for instance, "The Prince Is Giving a Ball" was expanded - by Fred Ebb, no less - to give Alexander, by that point a three-time Emmy nominee for "Seinfeld," a slapstick spectacle. "Cinderella," thanks to allowances by the composer's estate, also features the sort of flexibility with the original text that no successful revamp can do without. This supporting cast anchors the production in theatrical musicality, instead of pulling the viewer out of the narrative with famous people who can't sing (a la Pierce Brosnan of "Mamma Mia!" and Alec Baldwin of "Rock of Ages"). Instead, "Cinderella" centers on Norwood, with support from well-known actors with theater experience: Whoopi Goldberg and Victor Garber as the king and queen, Jason Alexander as the palace valet and Bernadette Peters as Cinderella's stepmother. ![]() The pairing of Norwood, a relative newcomer to the movie musical, with Montalban, a more experienced hand, points to another lesson to be learned from "Cinderella": More productions should take chances on fresh faces instead of signing the same handful of Hollywood names - James Corden, Meryl Streep and Anna Kendrick, for example - to yet another lead role. Just as "Carmen Jones" and "The Wiz" did with the opera "Carmen" and the movie "The Wizard of Oz," respectively, "Cinderella" takes a well-known (and usually white) story and puts actors of color at the forefront, something only a few studio-released movie musicals - such as 2004's "Bride and Prejudice," 2014's "Annie" and, arguably, 2019's "Cats" - have attempted since.īrandy Norwood became Disney's first Black princess in "Cinderella." (Disney+) In fact, the creatives behind Hollywood's current movie-musical boom could learn a thing or two from its clever spin on a classic text.īrandy Norwood stars in the multicultural fairy tale in a first for the centuries-old plot, with previous live-action treatments led by Mary Pickford in 1914, Julie Andrews in 1957 and Lesley Ann Warren in 1965. ![]() More than two decades later, as the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical makes its streaming debut Friday on Disney+, it's clear that "Cinderella" - which attracted an estimated 60 million viewers in its initial airing, sold 1 million home entertainment units in its first week and was named the most profitable TV movie of its time - was both for its moment and for the ages. "To put it bluntly, the girl can't act." Variety described Whitney Houston's Fairy Godmother as "a frightening caricature, one certain to send the kids scurrying into Mom’s lap." And the New York Times called it "a cobbled-together 'Cinderella' for the moment, not the ages." ![]() "Cinderella's glass slippers are far too big for Brandy to fill," wrote the Chicago Tribune. Just before "Cinderella" premiered in 1997, major outlets published their critics' disenchanted reviews. Brandy Norwood, left, and Whitney Houston are part of why "Cinderella" (1997) has withstood the test of time.
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