The running time is 1 hr. 16 mins..
Cinderella, the film, that saved Walt Disney Studios, was first released back in 1950. The classic fairy tale was brought to life as only the Disney of yore could manage; too bad it has fallen so far in recent years. No matter, Disney Home Entertainment knows how to keep the studio's pockets fat as this is only the latest in its Platinum series with plans for Lady in the Tramp in early 2006 and The Little Mermaid next year around this same time.
As for this DVD edition, as I said, it has everything. Deleted scenes, lost (now found) original storyboards, TV appearances by the voice cast on the Perry Como show, which includes the world's first chance to ever hear "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo," a massive making of featurette, remembrance featurettes and of course, the odd duck, an ESPN Classics feature promoting the top 10 "Cinderella Stories" of all-time, hosted by the loveable drunk Joe Namath.
While a lot of those features explain themselves, lets look a bit further at a couple of specific items. The main draw to the behind-the-scenes features revolves around the highly regarded "nine old men," which Walt employed to bring his magical stories to life. While they have a feature dedicated solely to the men, these were Walt Disney's chief animators back in the day and they are mentioned frequently throughout. The largest of the making-of features is a title called "Rags to Riches," which explores the process of bringing Cinderella to life. Techniques such as how they shot the entire film in live-action as a frame of reference for the animators and the mixing of realistic human animations with the cartoony animal characters.
The features get a bit nostalgic and rough as they explore the original storyboards and songs that never made it into the film, along with a look at the art of Disney artist Mary Blair, a bit from the Perry Como show, a clip from the "Mickey Mouse Club" and a vintage Laugh-O-Gram Cinderella production, which I felt was really the best thing about the second disc's multiple features.
There are also some DVD-ROM games for the little girl's in the family, a "House of Royalty" feature which will teach your little lady just what it takes to become pompous and arrogant, and a "Princess Pajama" game.
On a whole, while Cinderella is no doubt one of the best Disney films out there, my only interest in this DVD is the movie, these features did very little for me. I can't wholly explain it, I just felt they were not only geared to an audience I did not belong to, but they were simply uninteresting.
Features aside, this is a fantastic version of the film. Accompanied by a digitally restored picture and the impressive Disney Enhanced 5.1 surround sound audio I can only recommend you buy this DVD. You don't have to be any particular audience to enjoy classic Disney animation and Cinderella is up there with the best.