Cinderella three quarters of a century

On May 16, 1947, the premiere of the film "Cinderella" took place at the Leningrad Cinema House. The film was directed by Nadezhda Kosheverova and Mikhail Shapiro. The script of the film was written by Yevgeny Schwartz based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault, written in 1697. True, not everyone knows that the story of a prince who is looking for his beloved on a lost shoe was found in ancient Egyptian papyri.

Filmmakers began to use Charles Perrault's fairy tale as the basis of their films almost from the moment of the invention of cinema. For example, in 1899, Georges Méliès, who is considered the founder of feature films, made a short film based on this fairy tale. But the film by Kosheverova and Shapiro became the first full-length feature adaptation of this fairy tale in the history of cinema.

The film "Cinderella" by Nadezhda Kosheverova and Mikhail Shapiro became one of the leaders of the Soviet film distribution in 1947, gathering 18 million moviegoers in cinemas. According to this indicator, "Cinderella" was second only to "Symphony of Life" by Ivan Pyryev and "Secret Agent" by Boris Barnet.

There is a semi-legend about how the idea for the film was born. Allegedly, Nadezhda Kosheverova in 1944, walking through the corridors of the Committee on Cinematography, met Janina Żejmo, whom she had known since the 20s. Zheymo at that moment was experiencing a personal drama due to the beginning of a family discord with her husband, the famous film director Iosif Kheifets, she looked completely unhappy. Kosheverova, who wanted to pity and cheer up her friend, immediately came up with the idea to make a film about Cinderella, in which Żejmo would play the main role. And she immediately instructed Evgeny Schwartz to write the script for the future film.

In my opinion, such a meeting could well have taken place. And, it is likely that it was she who pushed Kosheverova to the idea of ​​shooting Żejmo in the role of Cinderella. But the very decision to make a film based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault was probably dictated by slightly different reasons. To understand these reasons, let's remember what was characteristic of 1944. The opening of the Second Front, the exit of Soviet troops to the pre-war borders of the Soviet Union. These events created the prerequisites for a kind of "micro-thaw". A manifestation of this "micro-thaw" in the cultural sphere was the decision of the film industry to make a film based on a Western fairy tale. Indeed, until that moment, fairy tale films based exclusively on Russian folk tales or works of Russian writers were filmed in the USSR: “By the Pike”, “Vasilisa the Beautiful”, “Kashchei the Immortal”, etc. The fairy tale of Charles Perrault, like no other, corresponded to the communist ideology, since its main character was a typical representative of the oppressed class.

As for the appointment of Janina Żejmo for the title role in the film adaptation of Charles Perrault's fairy tale, everything was far from so simple with him. Natalya Trauberg, daughter of the famous Soviet film director Leonid Trauberg, wrote "The Story of the Creation of Cinderella" based on personal memories, as well as interviews with historians and artists. In this essay, she quotes the words of the historian Lev Lurie: “Janina Żejmo is not a film actress by profession, she is from a circus family. And she started as an acrobat, a horsewoman. She had circus professions. But since the 20s, she starts acting. And before the war, she starred in the film "Girlfriends". There she was noticed by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, who was generally a cinephile, did not miss a single Soviet film. He noticed, and he did not like her terribly. However, in 1944, Kosheverova, the director of Cinderella, decides to choose Janina Żejmo for the main role. Despite the fact that she was already 37 years old, and she was not an ingenue, but a travesty, that is, she usually played boys. Everyone was against her: the management of the film studio, the administration."

Natalya Trauberg adds to Lurie’s words: “They didn’t like Żejmo, they didn’t want to see her as the main character. ... Everyone knew her very well, but to put her, a Polish woman by nationality, in the center of such a large-scale picture as "Cinderella" seemed nonsense.. An operation is beginning to squeeze Janina Żejmo out of the film crew of "Cinderella". They tried some young ballerina named Mazun ... I remember I came to the studio, she was standing, this girl, very pretty, so sweet. But Yevgeny Schwartz did not want to hear any of this. He firmly insisted on Żejmo's choice. Cinderella was not supposed to look like a Disney full-breasted young lady, the Prince had long been bored with such. Only kindness, childish spontaneity and innocence can attract him. No one could play better Żejmo, despite for her 37 years."

Finally Janina Żejmo got the role of Cinderella. But the cinematographic authorities recouped in their own way: when the issue of allocating color film for filming was decided, "Cinderella" was refused. But everyone knew that the film was originally conceived as a color film, and appropriate costumes and scenery were developed. Of course, the lack of color in the picture reduced its spectacle. And I think the decision to colorize this film, made in 2009, is absolutely justified and fair. But! Here's what is remarkable: after "Cinderella" by Kosheverova and Shapiro, several more full-length versions of this fairy tale were filmed (I do not consider television versions and animated films). Including bright and colorful films of Kenneth Branagh in 2015, or Kay Cannon in 2021, etc. But viewers, judging by the ratings given both on Kinopoisk and on IMDB, still rate the Soviet version of 1947 the highest. Even after more than seven decades since the release of the picture on the screens, 66% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave it marks from 8 to 10, and 26% of users rated the film with the highest score - "ten".

Natalya Trauberg writes in her essay: “If you look at the film crew of "Cinderella" with the sober look of a Soviet personnel officer, you will understand that this company looked extremely doubtful. Director Mikhail Shapiro, married to Trotsky’s relative Zhanna Gauzner. Artist Nikolai Akimov is a student of the white emigrant Yuri Annenkov. Composer Antonio Spadovecchia is Italian. Actors. Janina Żejmo (Cinderella) is Polish. Faina Ranevskaya (Stepmother) has just been suspended by a party decision from filming "Ivan the Terrible". A friend of A. A. Akhmatova. Alexei Konsovsky (Prince), from families of enemies of the people, father and brother were shot. Merkuriev (Forester) - married to the [daughter] of Vsevolod Meyerhold. Screenwriter Yevgeny Schwartz, a friend of the repressed Zabolotsky and Oleinikov. They were like-minded people, people of the past and people with a very dubious past. They conceived the decameron, this was an attempt to escape from Soviet reality into the world of a fairy tale, where completely different laws apply. In the 45th it was still possible, and on the set "Cinderella" had the same magical atmosphere as on the screen." Perhaps this was the secret of making a film that did not lose its charm for decades?

The film "Cinderella", figuratively speaking, "barely managed to jump on the bandwagon of the last car": the aforementioned "micro-thaw" ended immediately after its premiere. Nadezhda Kosheverova was able to make the next film only 6 years later, in 1953, Mikhail Shapiro - and even later, 9 years later, in 1956. Janina Żejmo got her next role only in 1954. Then she left for Poland.

In view of the above, the rating of the film "Cinderella" by Nadezhda Kosheverova and Mikhail Shapiro according to FilmGourmand version was 7,970, thanks to which it took 762nd Rank in the Golden Thousand.