(They had shot reference footage of difficult sequences before, but not a complete film.) The artists didn’t trace this footage, but the gestures, expressions and movements of the actors provided a starting point with their drawings. He couldn’t afford to scrap months of work, as he had done on “Snow White” and “Pinocchio.”įor the first time, the Disney artists shot the entire film in live action before they began animating. But this film had to be made on schedule and on a tight budget. Like “Snow White,” “Cinderella” was a well-loved fairy tale that centered on a pretty, sympathetic heroine. He owed the Bank of America millions of dollars, and the situation was growing desperate.ĭisney decided to risk everything on a single feature-length cartoon. Disney seemed to have lost the mass audience that had flocked to “Snow White” and his short cartoons, and the intellectuals, who had taken up his work during the ‘30s. None of the ‘40s “package features” had been been particularly successful. “Pinocchio,” “Fantasia” and “Bambi” had yet to show a profit. The postwar years were a difficult time for Walt Disney. If it had failed, there would have been no “Peter Pan,” no “Mickey Mouse Club” and no Disneyland. Like “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” which it resembles in many ways, “Cinderella” (1950, in re-release citywide) saved Walt Disney’s studio from imminent foreclosure.

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