ELLA CINDERS
Starring Colleen Moore and Lloyd Hughes
PHOTOPLAY
August 1926
Probably you know Ella Cinders of the comic strips. Ella is a great-great-great-granddaughter of Cinderella. Note that her name is Cinderella in reverse. The 1926 heroine goes to Hollywood instead of Prince Charming's grand ball. Does the plain little Ella make good? Does she? Well. Colleen Moore is Ella. This isn't one of Miss Moore's best comedies by any means. It is slow in spots. But is has another inside glimpse of Hollywood.
ELLA CINDERS
Starring Colleen Moore and Lloyd Hughes
MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE
September 1926
This picture is right up the street where Colleen Moore lives. With her sense of the ridiculous she makes this rustic Cinderella a real character study. The first impression of the famous cartoon strip was that it couldn't be done in the movies - that it didn't have enough stuff in it. But translated into celluloid, it more than holds up - and makes good.
We see Ella winning the beauty prize - we see her making off to Hollywood - we see her getting sick on the train as a heap big Injun orders her to smoke one of his cigars - we see her crashing the studio gate successfully - and actually getting a contract for feature roles.
Call it hokum if you will - but it is the kind of hokum that registers with nine persons out of ten who do not pose as hardboiled. There is pathos in Ella's every move, and the humor is well-distributed in the studio scenes. Here was a chance for the director to overdo it. But he keeps his balance.
Colleen makes Ella the eccentric "step-child" she is in the comic strip - and Lloyd Hughes, playing a movie counterpart of "Red' Grange, makes a competent foil for the star. You should enjoy the picture - not only for its appealing characterization, but also for its homey incident which is most colorfully presented. The frail idea might have been spoiled, but, thanks to sympathetic treatment, it takes on real value.