Silent Film of the Month: Cinderella (1911)

Run Time: 14 minutes. Studio: Thanhouser Film Corporation. Director: George Nichols. Based the fairy tale by Charles Perrault. Main Cast: Florence La Badie, Harry Benham, Anna Rosemond, Frank H. Crane. 

Due to its familiarity with any movie audience, film adaptions of Cinderella were very popular during the silent era. Legendary silent era director Georges Méliès even made two film versions, one in 1899 and another in 1912. Film historian J.B. Kaufman has written about many of the silent versions of this classic tale on his website. In fact, today's silent film of the month is not even the only film adaption of Cinderella in 1911. The Selig Company released a three-reel version of this story the same year. Also, in 1911 the Edison studio would make a modernized version of the story with a short film called, A Modern Cinderella (the Vitagraph studio made a film of the exact same name in 1910). While this version of the classic tale is not the most technically impressive silent film version, it still is a solid and fun little film. 

This film follows the storyline you all know. A young woman is treated like a slave by her evil stepmother and stepsisters. She dreams of going to the ball but is left behind. Her fairy Godmother shows up and helps her go to the ball. There she meets a handsome prince who falls in love with her. 

Short literary adaptions were quite common in films of this period. Often times these literary adaptions would have to condense a much longer story into a much short time frame. Relying on an audience's familiarity with these stories, the films would often times require that someone knew the source material to be able to understand the film. This type of very condensed storytelling can be off putting for many modern movie fans. However, since Cinderella is such a simple and basic storyline, it works perfectly within this short run time. In just 14 minutes this film feels like a complete retelling of the classic fairy tale. There is no important part of the story missing or rushed through. Instead, the story plays naturally and perfectly to a modern audience. The film can even take its time in a few moments, which makes the film all the more effective. Because of the simplicity of the story, it can be told with very few intertitles. There are very few intertitles here and honestly this almost pure visual telling of the story works perfectly. It even adds quite a bit to the charm.

Not only is the story well told but this is also a very handsome film. The costumes and sets are simply lovely to look at. The give the whole film a wonderful fairytale like feel that is completely charming. While the visual effects here are quite basic, they are also effective. They do a great job of helping tell the story, while not calling too much attention to themselves. Also making this film work so well is Florence La Badie's performance. Not only is she very beautiful but she also brought a real charm and sense of fun to the role. It is very easy to see why she was such a popular star at this time. 

Director George Nichols may not be the best remembered name in film history, but he was a very prolific director and actor during the silent era. Probably his biggest claim to fame as a director is that he directed some of Charlie Chaplin’s Keystone shorts. Chaplin was not a fan of Nichlos' comedy style after saying that his comedic repertoire consisted of "one gag, which was to take the comedian by the neck and bounce him from one scene to another." His acting credits include Mickey (1918), The Extra Girl (1923), Winds of Chance (1925), The Eagle (1925) and The Wedding March (1928) among many others.  

For anyone who wants to see this film, it is available on YouTube. 

Resources Used

The Chaplin Encyclopedia by Glenn Mitchell. 

https://www.jbkaufman.com/cutting-room-floor/silent-cinderella