Ella Cinders (1926)

Ella Cinders takes most of the pain out of the Cinderella story—here the step-family is bullying but not really evil—and gives star Colleen Moore a chance to be both the romantic and comic lead at the same time.

You know the set-up. After her mother’s death, Ella’s father got married to a woman with two daughters. They are the Pills, Lotta and Prissy (Doris Baker and Emily Gerdes). Lotta fancies herself to be the beauty of the family and when a contest is announced to select the loveliest girl in town to win a screen test with Gem Films, Ma Cinders (Vera Lewis) encourages her to enter. Girls are to send in glamor photos, and the winner will be announced at the big dance next Saturday.

Ella wants to enter, too, but the only encouragement she gets is from the iceman, Waite Lifter (Lloyd Hughes), who thinks she’s pretty nifty. Photos cost $3, money she doesn’t have, so Ella devotes a few nights to minding the neighbor’s kids--at $1 per mind.

While sitting for the photographer, she is tormented by a fly. When the picture is developed, it is sent on to the judges, and when it is finally revealed at the dance we see Ella’s face contorted as she tries to dislodge the buzzing pest. Crushed, she rushes home only to learn on Monday that the judges loved her sense of humor and are giving her the prize.

In Hollywood, she discovers that Gem Films is currently shooting in Egypt and that the contest was a hoax put on by a group of sharpers. But just maybe she will be discovered by a different studio . . . What do you think?

There is also a subplot dealing with the love-stricken Waite Lifter that is resolved by a surprise (maybe, depending on how naïve you are), but the picture is essentially an opportunity for Colleen Moore to demonstrate her comedy chops.

Moore had risen to stardom in one of the earliest flapper movies, the now lost Flaming Youth, and most of her first lead roles were in dramas. (F. Scott Fitzgerald said of her: “I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth and Colleen Moore was the torch. What little things we are to have caused all that trouble.")

Don’t let that mislead you—Ella is a delight. Moore can deliver the romance and sentiment, and she isn’t afraid of looking silly. Back home, while she is trying to learn how to be an actress by reading advice from a book, she practices crossing her eyes. In a close up, her eyes, working against each other, zig zag in all directions. It’s a surprising moment of impossible humor in an otherwise realistic setting. The trick was accomplished by blocking the left side of the camera lens and filming her moving her eyes around, then re-winding the film, blocking the right side and shooting again. The result is said to have caused Moore to laugh out loud when she saw the finished product.

Never a raving beauty, Moore was lovely and had a beautifully expressive face that could look average when she wanted it to. In Hollywood, Ella tells a director she meets, “I’m the beauty contest winner,” to which he snaps back, “I’ll keep your secret.” We know better. We’ve seen her at her best.

The film was directed by Alfred E. Green and produced by Moore’s husband, John McCormick. The story and scenario were written by Frank Griffin and Mervyn LeRoy, based on the comic strip “Eller Cinders” by William M. Conselman and Charles Plumb. George Marion, Jr. provided the titles.

Also in the cast were Jed Prouty, Jack Duffy, Harry Allen, Chief Yowlachie, and, in a funny cameo, Harry Langdon.