The Cinema: Cinderella, or "The Magic Slipper"

Leslie Caron's transformations in her various roles

Truth to tell, Leslie Caron excels at playing many different roles, each unlike the other. We saw her first of all in the film "Lili," playing the part of the village girl who dreams of becoming a dancer; and because of the popularity Leslie won in that film, she is now playing a similar role — only this time the story is adapted from a children's book by the famous French storyteller Perrault, and the story's name is "Cinderella," or "The Glass Slipper."

The film "The Glass Slipper" carries us into the world of childhood, the world of enormous sets, where you witness, for instance, a magic wand with which someone strikes a blow, and instantly there appears before us a giant cake no less than ten meters long! Luckily for Hollywood, it has directors who work miracles in the art of set design — so much so that they might well be called genies.

The French ballet troupe of Roland Petit, which took part in this film, had never in all its history been given the chance to dance on a stage wider than this one; and to film the scenes of this splendid spectacle the cameramen asked for high wooden barriers to be put up, so as to show the troupe to the fullest advantage. At the end of the spectacle we see Leslie make her magic leap from a dizzy height, to be caught on the ground by the prince of her dreams, Michael Wilding.

As for the costumes and gowns made for this film, they are many; it is enough to mention that the evening gown Leslie wore was the joint work of ten fashion designers, who carried it out in three weeks, and that it required two hundred meters of cloth. It is told that when Leslie put it on, she could not get out of the door of the room, so that they were forced to demolish the door and part of the wall. And another problem faced the director: the "slippers," which play a leading role in the film. They were made of transparent plastic, and every time Leslie put on a pair, it would break after a few steps. So the factory made fourteen pairs of them, and at times the director had to fall back on changing the scenes so that the feet would not show!!