A Modern Cinderella

For me, the only strong point of the short was watching Brian Donlevy portray a drunk in way over-the-top fashion. He manages to provide the only point of interest in this insufferable take on the Cinderella story.

Vitaphone produced some really dated musical shorts in the '30s and this is certainly one that lacks a decent script. Much of the humor is today regarded as politically incorrect, particularly the overdone Italian accents and the drunken routines that are supposed to be very funny.

The only originality comes in the "mirror" scene with Etting seated before what looks like a huge TV screen (a mirror) gazing at the party and imagining herself as being introduced as a singer.

Her voice is small and tinny (thanks to the bad sound recording of the era), but it's her acting that is really atrocious. She sounds like a Brooklyn dame trying to sound high class and reading her lines with flat delivery. Nothing at all like the woman who would portray her much later on--Doris Day.

So much for Vitaphone and their Ruth Etting shorts. This has got to be one of the worst. The lifeless songs are no help.

Anita Ragusa (Ruth Etting) is the daughter of a costume designer. At the last minute, she delivers a dress to a lavish ball. The snobby socialite dismisses the dress. Anita offers to model the dress. She's alone and starts singing. A drunken party guest passes by and brings her to the party.

This is mostly for Ruth Etting fans. The radio star is in her mid-30's and is no ingénue which this role really needs. At best, it's really an old timey middling musical short at best. It could have injected some drama if the rich owners actually did anything. It's not bad, but there's really nothing much here.

The chance to see Ruth Etting one of the great singers of the 20s and 30s who did not make too many films is not to be passed up. Even in a short subject like A Modern Cinderella and I have to say that Ms. Etting's acting was not as good as her singing.

Ruth plays the daughter of an Italian tailor played by Adrian Rosley who makes Chico Marx's Italian look like a Renaissance Prince. He asks his daughter to rush deliver a gown over to a swank party.

When she models the gown, she gets invited to the party by the chauffeur a most tipsy Brian Donlevy. Where she delivers a couple of songs in good Ruth Etting style.

Etting never did really make it in Hollywood. Her life turned out to be a great subject for a great film where Doris Day played her. Best you see her in the Eddie Cantor classic Roman Scandals where she has a big Sam Goldwyn/Busby Berkeley production number No More Love.

I've seen a number of Ruth Etting shorts and have never really understood what was so great about her. She was a below-par actress and a passable singer. She certainly is not the singer that Doris Day portrays in "Love Me or Leave Me". In this short, she portrays the daughter of an Italian tailor who must deliver a gown to a socialite for a party. At the party, she is asked to sing. This is where we get her two musical numbers. The comedy in this short is mild at best and the supporting players do not add much. Ruth Etting does not give anything to her role; she is not funny and it seems that she is reading her dialog. I suppose her poor acting kept her in shorts and in guest spots in features. The Brooklyn Vitaphone short subject unit was never a great studio for comedy. They tried, but they rarely succeeded. They did not use Bob Hope properly and gave Shemp Howard some very bad material. This is just another in the series of comedy misfires from Vitaphone.

I know Buddy Ebsen when I see him dancing. Nobody can dance like that except Buddy. I don't know who his partner was, but, she was great herself. This duo dance routine in this "A Modern Cinderella" IS the highlight of this whole Vitaphone Short.

I tried to find a reference to Buddy Ebsen in this short but he was not mentioned anywhere...... But... Now you know!