User Reviews

While you might think that this 1911 film was the first version of the famous Cinderalla tale, it is not--as there was one made well over a decade earlier. Despite not being the first, it is, however, worth seeing. Now the film is not perfect. It could have used more intertitle cards as much of the action was in need of some explanation--though I assume that audiences at the time were familiar with the Perrault tale and understood what they were seeing. It also had a very cramped ballroom--though otherwise the sets were very nice. What impressed me most as the scene with the horses and carriage inside Cinderella's house--and they made the wall appear and disappear so very nicely. Additionally, the acting was reasonably subdued for its time and Florence La Badie did a nice job in the title role. Well worth seeing--particularly for lovers of very early cinema.

I'm with user planktonrules on this short: this is a charming early film rendition of the Cinderella story with pleasing costumes, special effects, and locales.

The main attraction is Florence La Badie as the titular character, whose classic beauty and pluckiness make her stand out from the rest of the cast. It's a shame her film career would be cut short by a fatal car accident six years afterward. Like the ill-fated starlets Martha Mansfield and Olive Thomas after her, early cinema geeks are left wondering what could have been.

One thing I loved was how few inter titles were used. Unless you're from another planet, you're likely to be familiar with the Cinderella story, especially the Perrault variation, which is what the filmmakers based their version off of. Extra titles would have felt unnecessary, at least in my opinion.

Overall, this 1911 Cinderella is good stuff and worthy viewing for the student or fan of early film.

A sumptuous (for the time) version of the familiar fairy tale that comes alive whenever leading lady Florence La Badie makes an entrance. Director George Nichols tells the tale with brisk efficiency, but no flair.

Cinderella (1911)

*** (out of 4)

This early version of the classic tale from the Thanhouser company features their main star Florence La Badie in the title role. There's really not a point in going into many details about the plot because if you know what the tale is about then you already know that very few of the films really go away from it. There's a minor change here that happens towards the end but I won't spoil it for those who have yet to watch this version. For the most part this is a pretty good version thanks in large part to La Badie who certainly makes for a good and believable Cinderella. The film contains a couple trick shots that are pretty good for their time but there's no question that they still lack the quality of what Georges Melies was doing. The costumes are nice and overall it's a good version.

Nice to travel back in time with classics like this. Well done. Beautiful Cinderella as well. Interesting it's a stepfather instead of wicker step mother and he didn't seem to be as mean. Almost like he didn't know how to control his spoil daughters.

This is a mediocre one-reeler, an adaptation of the popular fairytale. The story had already been made into a few movies before this one. The first was by film pioneer George Albert Smith in 1898 (currently, a lost film), one of several one-scene films he made during that period where he employed the then-new film technique of multiple-exposure photography (or superimpositions). ("Santa Claus" (1898) seems to be his only surviving film of these trick attractions.) The following year, Georges Méliès made a multi-scene version, which employed even more trick effects, and was unique in its length and structure of multiple scenes for the time. This 1911 Thanhouser production was soon upstaged by a three-reel "Cinderella" by the Selig Company released within less than a month's span of this film and, later, by a 1914 four-reel feature starring the wife-husband team of Mary Pickford and Owen Moore.

This one-reeler begins with some decent continuity editing: brief crosscutting between the crier bringing news of the ball and Cinderella inside. After that, however, the stationary camera positions become more noticeable as scenes begin to linger. This was most noticeable to me in the first scene with the fairy godmother, where she brings the carriage to life within a kitchen. Just when I was wondering how it was going to get outside, the fairy godmother makes a kitchen wall disappear. This sequence of stop-substitutions and superimposition and dissolve transitions made this, albeit slight, one-reeler worth watching for me. It's also interesting to compare this film to the Méliès and Pickford adaptations also available on video, in addition to the many more cinematic versions since.

After more than a century and many other versions of classic fairytale, this short film by George Nichols can be defined as correct or just lovely. Not only in the context of its time, but for a high fair used simplicity .

Florence La Badie offeres a nice Cinderella, not humble, but determined , the Godmother is just beautiful defined and the presence of poor father sounds just good.

In short, a seductive short adaptation, the dose of nostalgia representing the good spice in this case.

The basic moment of Charles Perrault text are beautiful reflected and the presence of the second slipper sounds just nice.

So, to be fair, lovely is a not a wrong term to define it.