Watch Cinderella

An elaborately produced version of the well known fairy tale interrupted by just a few summarizing intertitles, with Florence LaBadie and Harry Benham. Although in-camera trick photography is important for the story, it is rather conventional, having been introduced over ten years earlier by French filmmaker Georges Méliès. Costumes, sets, and locations make it a visual feast, and some stylistic skill is used with brief shots and cross cutting to quicken the pace as Cinderella flees at midnight. The intense competition between film producers of the time is indicated by the near-simultaneous release of this one-reel version by Thanhouser, and the release, one week later, of a three-reel version by Selig. A holiday release was just as important then as now, CINDERELLA was produced the previous summer but released at Christmas. The next step for Thanhouser was the move to multi-reel features. The release following CINDERELLA was an adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's SHE, Thanhouser's first two-reel release.