TV Review: 'Cinderella'

Date: October 28, 1997
By Marilyn Moss

From The Hollywood Reporter
Submitted by: Larry A.


Since humans began to speak and write, we've been telling ourselves the story of "Cinderella." We've accumulated some 365 versions of the story, from every point of the globe and with every pseudonym imaginable. From the dark tale of the Grimm brothers' "Ashputtle" to Disney's animated classic, no other fairy tale has so well calmed a child's Oedipal crisis or an attack of sibling rivalry.

In the bunch of Cinderellas that have been heaped upon us, the degraded daughter and would-be princess has also touched the American musical sphere. Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" was first produced for television in 1957 with Julie Andrews in the lead. In 1965, Lesley Ann Warren took the glass slipper in another television spectacle.

Now we're on our third TV telling, and Sunday's "Wonderful World of Disney" telecast, "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella," has been given a multicultural workover and a dazzling visual sheen - with sets and costumes to die for. Does it dazzle the heart? Not entirely.

There's something off about this musical "Cinderella" - not unlike the 1965 production. It has to do with the crawl of the whole affair; it moves at a snail's pace, and between production numbers it displays wide gaps of nothing going on. And when we get to the good stuff - the touching songs of Rodgers and Hammerstein - we're almost too petered out to care.

All this comes despite a stellar cast and fits of pageantry that mark this version. But there's only so much standing around actors can take until "happily ever after."

Singing sensation Brandy ("Moesha") gets the frosting this time around. She's an apt personification of the passive Cinderella, and her voice liltingly captures Rodgers and Hammerstein's haunting music. But Brandy's oft-times martyred, wide-eyed stare at the universe makes her Cinderella a bit more waifish than necessary.

As Cinderella's fairy godmother, Whitney Houston (also an executive producer of the telecast) revamps (almost to vamphood) the sweet and dowdy woman we're used to seeing. This fairy mom is feisty and forthright yet hardly a match in the chutzpah department for Bernadette Peters' riveting take on the wicked stepmother. Peters' gowns almost shiver in their boots when she belts out "Falling in Love With Love" as she leaves for the ball with the ugly stepsisters (the terrific Natalie Desselle and Veanne Cox). Present and accounted for but pretty much wasted are Whoopi Goldberg as Queen Constantina, Victor Garber as King Maximilian and Jason Alexander as Lionel, the prince's steward. Newcomer Paolo Montalban is appropriately anemic as the prince who wins Cinderella's hand.

The sets are imaginative - especially the village square in the opening sequences, and for sure Cinderella's dizzying, Alice in Wonderland-ish abode. Of course, the music is memorable and the choreography energetic. Yet it's those moments between songs that bring a bit of ho-hum to this affair. Maybe it's just the nature of the beast.