Cinderella — Cinderella( Blu Ray)
Cinderella is a late 70’s softcore, musical, and bawdy-to-bumbling comedy take on the classic fairy tale. It’s a mellow, lightly romping, and groovy ride of a film- with not bad production standards, costumes, and presentation for an adult parody/ send-up. Here from Full Moon Features is a region free & bare-bones release of the film.
Released in May 1977, Cinderella was directed by Michael Pataki- who is more known as an actor, having an impressive one hundred and seventy-five acting credits to his name. He only has one other feature-length directorial credit to his name, 1976’s mad doctor horror picture Mansion Of Doom. Cinderella was Charles Bands' fourth producer’s credit; hence it is turning up for release from Full Moon.
The plot is fairly loyal to the original story, though of course with a few perverse and groovy twists. so, we have Cinderella, played by the blond-haired Cheryl Smith. She lives with her two ugly and nasty sisters Drucella (Yana Nirvana) Marbella(Marilyn Corwin), and an evil stepmother(Jennifer Stace). Cinders is rather downtrodden, wearing rags as her sisters are garishly made up with bright dresses. When we first meet cinders and her sisters, she is at her spinning wheel- as they taught her, then stripping off- heading upstairs, to have fun with two vibrating sweetcorn cobs.
The prince, played by the wonderful named Brett Smiley, is a jaded can’t be pleasured by his harem character- and it’s decided he needs to settle down. So, the floppy moustached and bumbling lord Chamberlain (Kirks Scott) is sent out to invite eligible women to the court for a party to select the new wife. So along his way we get a few attempts at him trying to get his end away, before he finally does it in a threesome. He of course visits the house of cinders, been rather put off by the sisters, but he hands all three invites- evil stepmom burns cinders one….and it seems is all lost for her.
Next pops up one of the most memorable actors/ characters in the film- Sy Richardson, who plays a jive-talking robber/ come fairy godmother. He waves his condom covered wand, and wallah Cinders has a dress- but most importantly a pussy that snaps!.
As things move on we make it to the ball, where 'butt black gammon' is been played- where the prince is masked, and a bleach blond African American dancer selects a woman( off a square) to pleasure the prince….and you can imagine what unfolds. With the morning after the prince taking the discarded shoe, to find who fits it and has the snapping pussy.
The cast throughout is good, with special mentions, of course, going to Mr Richardson as the robber/fairy godmother, Nirvana & Corwin as the hamming it/ crinkling their faces up sisters, and Scott as the bumbling-yet-horny lord Chamberlain. The fleshy action here is fairly tame softcore, and for the first half of the film it’s fairly fleeting- only becoming a little more prolonged in the latter part of the film. The musical side of the film is surprisingly fun, rewarding, and groovy- with a mix of bawdy show tunes, and camping it up disco tunes. There’s all so a great score too, which moves between funky ‘n’ mellow rhodes led workouts, and a few moments of psych/ mind-melting synth scaping.
The blu ray is region free- and the new print of the film looks very good and bold in its colours. The audio, in particular, some of the scoring is a little stretched/ waving- which is a pity, but it’s not a big issue- as it never affects the dialogue. As with most of Full Moon releases, this is a very bare-bones affair- with only a vintage trailer reel.
As Cinderella was an early Band connected picture- I was, of course, aware of it, but this blu ray was a first watch. And I must say I was rather taken by the film, and if your after funny, mellow, lightly fleshy, and at points groovy 70’s take on the Cinders story this will certainly be your thing….now we just need someone to reissue the soundtrack, which a great mix of bawdy show tunes, disco, funking mellow-to- tripped out synth scoring.