Cinderella (1950)

This may be difficult to consider in an era where Disney is arguably the world's most powerful entertainment conglomerate, but there was a period where the company was in a precarious state (multiple periods actually, but we're talking about the postwar era). Disney was in massive debt in the late 40's and the company could've very easily gone under. The world might've become a very different place had the considerable investment in Cinderella had yielded a flop, but the 1950 film turned out to be the studio's biggest hit in decades. Cinderella's success put Disney back in the black, ensured the continuation of the studio's animated features, and gave Walt Disney enough capital to begin pursuing his goal of building a theme park in California. The movie itself also set a number of noteworthy precedents for Disney fare. It's the first Disney movie to have its soundtrack get a commercial release, it's the first film to feature every member of the venerable animation crew known as "The Nine Old Men", it's possibly the first movie to feature multitracked vocal effects, and it solidified many of the tropes associated with the Disney Princess archetype. This one might be even a bigger deal to the Disney canon than you may assume; Cinderella's castle is in the official Disney logo for a reason. Ryan is joined by Sylvan and Cheryl for a conversation about this impacting feature. Discussion topics include the history of the Cinderella story, the character's connections to the struggles of those working service jobs, whether Cinderella is too passive a figure in her own film, why Prince Charming is such a cipher in the movie, and why the mice steal every scene they're in.