Murketing’s Sponsored Film Virtual Festival: “A Coach For Cinderella”

A Coach For Cinderella

[ –> Details on Sponsored-Film Virtual Festival are here.]

This nine-minute film from 1937 was made on behalf of the Chevrolet Motor Company, by well-known industrial film company the Jam Handy Organization.

A pretty nicely executed piece of Technicolor animation, the film tells – as the title suggests – the familiar story of Cinderella. That’s right, she can’t make it to the ball because she has “no coach.” So her little friends set about making her a dress and coach, etc. – all pretty straightforward (except maybe for the bit where you can hear Cinderella being briefly slapped around offscreen, which is slightly disturbing).

Things don’t really get interesting until the end, when the “coach” – an unwieldy-looking DIY affair – is steered into a “Modernizer.” This is a big black tube that pumps smoke, but I know it’s a Modernizer because it says so right on the side. Anyway, when it comes out – it’s a brand new Chevrolet!

There’s not just a whole to say about this, but it’s a pretty nice distillation of technology and industry re-imagined as happy magic.

But I included it here mostly because according to the notes in The Field Guide To Sponsored Films, it was shown in some 7,000 theaters, reaching an estimated audience of 14 million people. Kind amazing.