Pleasant 'Cinderella' Needs More Heart

Date: November 01, 1997
By Pete Schulberg, of The Oregonian staff

From The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
Submitted by: Larry A.


Grab on to your couch and secure the remote. The sheer force of the November sweeps is guaranteed to suck you out of your TV lethargy this weekend.

NBC's sci-fi drama "Sleepwalkers" on Saturday night is the last of the more than three dozen new series to crawl onto the airwaves.

Then, come Sunday, a new version of "Cinderella" highlights a jampacked night of miniseries, movies, series and specials. And just think, only 3 1/2 weeks to go before things get back to normal -- which undoubtedly means massive show juggling and cancellations.

In what is surely one of the most hyped programs of the season, ABC's "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella" on "The Wonderful World of Disney" puts a fresh, multiracial spin on the classic fairy tale.

Cinderella and the fairy godmother are African American. One of the sisters is white, the other African American. The prince is Filipino. His father is white and mother African American.

So much for fairy-tale stereotypes. Except for the wildly bright hues that emanate from every stitch of clothing, this racially diverse "Cinderella" is unabashedly colorblind.

If the gentle lyrics and scintillating score sound familiar, you're probably old enough to remember Julie Andrews in the title role in the live 1957 version (hey, just like "ER" but with singing and dancing) and eight years later with Lesley Ann Warren losing the glass slipper.

This time, the woman who hooks the prince is 18-year-old Brandy, whose singing and acting abilities are about a "B" but whose star power is approaching "A" territory.

The eternally pleasant Brandy is joined by a rowdy cast of even bigger names: Whitney Houston, who earlier was considered for the Cinderella role, just as miscast as the flashy fairy godmother; Bernadette Peters as the annoying stepmother; Whoopi Goldberg as a cuddly Queen Constantina; veteran Broadway star Victor Garber as the King; Jason Alexander as the prince's bafoonish steward; and newcomer Paolo Montalban as the handsome, nice-guy prince.

They are, with the exception of the glitter-attired Houston, as delightful as they can be.

As a whole, the production, while pleasing, falls a tad short of hitting all the heartstrings. I wanted the stepsisters meaner and the fairy godmother warmer. It seemed like everybody, except for Cinderella and the prince, played it for laughs. This isn't "The Drew Carey Show," after all. I want "Cinderella" to overflow in romance, not in cheap laughs. Even the fairy godmother was going for one-liners. "I'm your fairy godmother, honey. You got a problem with that?" she says in her entrance.

Yeah, I got a few problems. But overall, "Cinderella" is a comfortable visit.