Cinderella Jones (1946)

(On Cable TV, November 2022) The nice thing about once-popular movie genres is that if you like the classics in that category, there’s plenty more to enjoy. Light-hearted but meaningless Cinderella Jones, for instance, is clearly not a great musical. But it is a musical, so if you like the tone (and are ready to overlook a few execution issues), then you’ve got a perfectly fun little movie that plays well even if it leaves no great impression. Here, we have Joan Leslie as a likable but dim singer who discovers she’s the heir to a fortune… if she can meet the conditions of the will and marry a certifiable genius. Given that this is a musical, the next logical step is, of course, to enroll in an elite all-male college to find a suitor. For a film directed by Busby Berkeley, the “musical” aspect of this musical comedy is lacking—there isn’t much here in terms of dancing or choreography. All the effort seems to have gone into the comedy, which is occasionally amusing but again not all that great. Still, even an amusing comedy can be interesting, what with a few zingers along the way and a showy little part for S. Z. Sakall. There’s a bit of systemic misogyny that is, for once, the butt of mild potshots. Calling Cinderella Jones a wartime musical may seem weird for a 1946 release, but that’s not taking into account that the film was completed in 1943, then held back for years. By the time it was released, it had to be re-edited to reflect the end of the war, leading to a few glaring inconsistencies (and probably many more unseen issues) within the film. Don’t watch Cinderella Jones because you’re expecting a top-notch musical—watch it because you’ve seen everything else, and like the overall atmosphere of such movies. Then it becomes a lot more fun.