A girl, a prince, a ball, a slipper
Don't be too demanding, enjoy it

Date: November 02, 1997
By Robert P. Laurence, Television Critic

From The San Diego Union-Tribune
Submitted by: Larry A.


With Halloween safely past and the kids' trick-or-treat bags still stuffed with Starbursts, M&Ms, Lemon Heads, Tootsie Rolls and Bottle Caps, you may not be in the mood for more sweets just yet. But if you are, the Disney candy factory has whipped up a light, sugary confection called "Cinderella." We all know the story -- servant girl, wicked stepmother, prince, fairy godmother, grand ball, glass slipper, happily ever after.

Walt Disney himself produced the definitive movie version, the animated classic of 1950. The Disney company's newest "Cinderella," however, revives another version, a live TV production broadcast in 1957. The star was Julie Andrews, just 22 years old and fresh from her triumph in Broadway's "My Fair Lady." Songs were by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, writing their only musical score for television.

It wasn't one of their best, but it did include the memorable "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?" So a revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein "Cinderella" after 40 years is a perfectly fine idea as we approach the holidays, and this version has much to recommend it, particularly some snazzy bits of animation, a deliberately multiethnic cast and the performances of Whitney Houston as the Fairy Godmother, Bernadette Peters as the Stepmother and Jason Alexander as the Prince's valet, Lionel, a newly added character.

While the original lasted just 90 minutes (Disney's cartoon ran 75 minutes), this revival has been stretched to two hours with the introduction of Lionel and the addition of three Rogers and Hammerstein songs from other shows, including "The Sweetest Sound," "Falling in Love With Love" and "There's Music in You." But this "Cinderella" lacks what it needs most -- a Cinderella who can really sing.

Andrews, as anybody knows who's ever heard her sprint through the vocal gauntlet of "Show Me" on the "My Fair Lady" original cast album, sang with astonishing, exhilarating power, vast range and confidence. Brandy, one of the teen stars of the moment, just isn't up to singing melodies Rodgers wrote with Andrews' voice in mind.

She has a nice, sweet, pretty voice, but a small, wispy one, noticeably weak and limited to an extremely narrow range. As the Prince, Philippine-born newcomer Paolo Montalban is a little stronger, a little more confident -- but just a little. Their shortcomings are cruelly underlined in scenes where pros like Alexander, Houston and Peters take charge.

Peters in particular takes the character of the stepmother beyond the cardboard villain stereotype, her voice fairly dripping with venom when she sneers at Cinderella, "You're common, your father was weak.

He filled your head with thoughts and dreams that will never come true.

Never." Alexander is, as always, a nimble, agreeably comic dancer and a versatile singer, and he gets to speak the truth about the "Cinderella" plot that has been wilfully and universally ignored until now: "A shoe made out of glass? Who dances in glass shoes?"

Houston, also executive producer, effortlessly belts every song she touches out of the park, particularly her uplifting finale, "There's Music in You." Whoopi Goldberg lends some comedy in the nonsinging role of the Prince's pushy mother.

The new script by Robert L. Freedman takes a modern tack on the "Cinderella" story, making the Fairy Godmother something of a 1990s-style self-improvement motivational speaker -- "Believe in yourself, Cinderella!" But the story must end the way it always has -- poor Cinderella finds happiness by marrying the fabulously wealthy prince and, we are led to believe, living happily ever after.

It's an old-fashioned message, but "Cinderella," like it or not, is an old-fashioned story.