Poor Cinderella (1934)
Poor Cinderella Review
Poor Cinderella is a 1934 animated short film from the Betty Boop series. It is a phenomenal short that is one of the best in the series.
This was a much more faithful and straightforward adaptation of a fairy tale than Betty Boop’s ‘Snow-White’, but mostly for the better. Yes, the ending was only serviceable and nowhere near as epic as the ending from the Disney version of this story, but in all other aspects it came awfully close to reaching that quality. In fact, the two are so similar that Disney must have been inspired by this movie for their own adaptation.
This is a rare color cartoon in the series. The animation was done in two-strip Cinecolor as Disney had the monopoly over Technicolor back then. The result is a washed up look to the movie with too many greens and reds in its color palette, but Betty with red hair was quite memorable and the movie looked very detailed, epic and beautifully designed. The castle was gorgeous, the costumes were superb and the character movements were surprisingly polished. The human characters were so realistically animated for the time.
The story is mostly very well adapted and the prolonged runtime of ten minutes was a great choice for this adaptation, leaving no major plot points on the cutting floor. The highlight here was definitely the score. The titular song was particularly superb – wonderfully sung, timeless and oh so catchy and fun. Other characters needed more development, but Betty herself was lovely here.
