Due to pressing time constraints, I am occasionally finding myself having to literally look up short films online to chalk up a respectable amount of viewings on a day-to-day basis. This, then – and the earlier GERTIE THE DINOSAUR (1914) – is one of the 10 animated short films that I had yet to catch up with that are included in the "All-Time Top 3,000" list compiled by the "Wonders In The Dark" website.

Coming hot on the heels of my Yuletide fairy tale film adaptations viewings – which had included 3 versions of the titular fable: THE GLASS SLIPPER (1955; with Leslie Caron), THE SLIPPER AND THE ROSE: THE STORY OF Cinderella (1976; with Richard Chamberlain) and the X-rated Cinderella (1977) – this is also the third film I am watching from the German silhouette animator Reiniger, following her full-length feature THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED (1926) and the Christmas short, THE STAR OF BETLEHEM (1956). For the record, it seems Reiniger would return to the Brothers Grimm tale over 30 years later in a subsequent adaptation.

While the animation present in the 14-minute short is pleasant in itself (not least because of the blue tint throughout), what really sticks out in this particular adaptation is a surprisingly gruesome (for its time, of course) sequence where Cinderella's two evil sisters lop off part of their own feet in a desperate attempt to make the all-important, unclaimed slipper fit themnot to mention the fact that in an intertitle they disparagingly refer to her as "a slut"!! Again, the inclusion of such trivial fare in these kind of lists is curious at best and questionable at worst but one can somewhat understand 'critics' wanting to keep them in the limelight this way and preserve them for their historical value.

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