Caregiver

Herbert Brenon. (1880-1958). A Kiss for Cinderella. 1925. USA. 35mm print, black and white, silent, approx. 105 min. Acquired from the Harvard University Film Foundation

On the heels of director Herbert Brenon’s successful 1924 adaptation of James M. Barrie’s stage hit Peter Pan, Paramount Pictures quickly put into production another Barrie property, A Kiss for Cinderella, again with Brenon at the helm. In this fantasy, Betty Bronson (who portrayed Peter in the earlier film) plays Cinderella, a servant girl in wartime London who still believes in fairies. Suspected of aiding the enemy, she is cleared of all suspicion with the help of an artist, for whom she works, and a young policeman. One day, she falls asleep at the snow-covered threshold of her lodgings with four caged mice and a pumpkin, and dreams that she is Cinderella from the fairy tale. After waking from her magical sleep, she finds herself in the young policeman’s arms, her dream now a reality. A whimsical, timeless fantasy, A Kiss for Cinderella also contains elements that satirize the foibles of the modern world. In the end, it is Bronson’s moving performance in the title role that carries this film right through to its final fade-out, one that rivals the ending of Charles Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) in sadness and beauty.

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