Few animated features from the mid-twentieth century remain as widely watched today as this 1950 telling of Cinderella, a hand-drawn fantasy that turned a familiar folk tale into one of the era's most enduring family films.
What is Cinderella about?
A young woman named Cinderella lives under the control of a stepmother and two step-sisters who treat her as unpaid help around the house. When an invitation arrives for a grand ball at the royal palace, she is denied the chance to attend until unexpected help appears in the form of a fairy godmother, who transforms her circumstances just long enough for the evening to unfold. Cinderella's mouse companions play their own part in getting her there, and the night at the palace sets in motion a search that carries past midnight, once the spell that made it all possible comes to an end.
About the cast
The English-language voice cast includes Ilene Woods in the title role, alongside Eleanor Audley, Lucille Bliss, Verna Felton, Helene Stanley, James MacDonald, Luis van Rooten and Don Barclay filling out the household and the palace around her. Direction was shared among Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske, a common arrangement for feature animation of this period, where sequences were often split among multiple directing units working in parallel.
Context & significance
Released in the United States in 1950, the film sits within a wave of animated fairy-tale adaptations from the period that leaned on fantasy and romance rather than realism. Its genre mix of animation, fantasy and romance places it alongside other mid-century family features that treated folk material as the basis for a fully imagined musical world, with transformation and enchantment used as the engine of the plot rather than as a single special effect.
Watching Cinderella on Ktime
The film is available to watch on K-Time with a free account login, presented with a Persian-language dub as well as Persian subtitles, so it can be followed either as originally performed in English or fully localized for a Farsi-speaking audience. K-Time's Farsi interface makes it easy for the Iranian diaspora to find and queue up classic family titles like this one alongside newer catalogue additions.