Cinderfella

Earlier, while waiting for the Sweet One’s delicious chicken adobo, we took in a classic Jerry Lewis movie, Cinderfella, which concerned family as well but in an entirely different light. Superficially an update of Cinderalla, complete with fairy godfather (the extremely red-nosed Ed Wynn), this really is just a vehicle for Lewis’s physical comedy. Dame Judith Anderson plays the wicked stepmother (Trek connection: Anderson played High Priestess T’Lar in The Search for Spock), Robert Hutton and Henry Silva are the brothers, and Anna Maria Alberghetti as the lovely Princess Charming, staying with Anderson et fils while visiting America to find a husband. Lewis’ family expect her to hook up with Hutton. Wink wink nudge nudge. But this is a prime example of the work Lewis did after leaving Dean Martin; so many dismiss him these days with a snarky comment about how the French love him but that’s unwarranted–in his prime, the late ’40s through the mid-60s, he did work as well as anyone.

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