Leslie Caron was the perfect choice to play Cinderella, a scruffy, rebellious girl living with her step-mother and step-sisters, "not quite a servant and not quite a member of the family". Caron reunites here with much of the team from her best movie "Lili", and if the results are not quite as memorable it may be because the story has been exhausted. Still, director Charles Walters paces it carefully (some may say sluggishly) and keeps the outré magic of the tale to a minimum. The droll observation/narration is dryly amusing and the step-family isn't overly nasty to Caron (they treat her more like a black sheep than a housemaid). The MGM production is modest, but the cast is all quite colorful and the musical direction and balletic fantasy sequences are very good. Lovely, a bit tepid, but sweet and simple. **1/2 from ****