Si tu vois ma nièce

A better than average comedy of the period that includes a backstage look at Hollywood. It includes a scene with Harry Langdon playing his typical screen character.

Best scenes are Ella on the lam backstage at a Hollywood studio; at the photo studio; Ella's first cigar and the eye exercises. Some of the womens costumes and the titles are also very good.

ELLA CINDERS (First National, 1926), a John McCormick production, directed by Alfred E. Green, is a star vehicle for Colleen Moore, a popular silent screen flapper of the 1920s, in one of her more notable comedies of her career that has become forgotten through the passage of time. It's a Hollywood story taken from both comic strip character and Cinderella fairy tale, and reminiscent to Mabel Normand performance in THE EXTRA GIRL (1923). Similarities in theme makes it quite easy to confuse these two, especially when both characters are seen disrupting the studio when encountered by a lion. While THE EXTRA GIRL switches to melodrama from time to time, ELLA CINDERS is pure comedy that makes good use of Moore's comedic talents.

Opening title card: "The Cinders residence in Roseville - where the first bowl of wax bananas appeared on an American sideboard." Ella Cinders (Colleen Moore) works like a slave for her wicked stepmother (Vera Lewis) and equally wicked stepsisters known as the Pills, Lotta (Doris Baker) and Prissy (Emily Gerdes), waiting on them hand and foot. Her one and only friend is Waite Lifter (Lloyd Hughes), a young man employed for the Union Ice Company, who in reality happens to be George Waite, a football hero and graduate from the University of Illinois as well as being the son of a millionaire (revealed on screen through a close up shot of a newspaper clipping)who disapproves of Ella. During a meeting of the Pollyanna Club held at the Cinders household every second Thursday of the month, where members get to "cheat at cards," Ella overhears her stepmother's intention on having Lotta representing Roseville by entering her in a movie contest sponsored by the Gem Film Company, with the prize being a trip to Hollywood and a chance to appear in a motion picture. Seeing this an opportunity in breaking away from the Pills, Ella earns the extra money needed for entrance fees and studio portrait taken of herself through babysitting. As she is poses to have her picture taken (one point being a strong resemblance of Lillian Gish), the photographer (Harry Allen) snapshots the very moment Ella becomes cross-eyed (like Ben Turpin) as she blows away a fly resting on her nose. It so happens that this is the picture that makes it to the judges. At the ball, where the winner's name is to be announced, to everyone's surprise, Ella's picture is the winner. After a merry send-off from the community (with the exception of the Pills) at the train station where the mayor (Jed Prouty) makes a speech, Ella takes off for Hollywood. Upon her arrival, she taxis over to the studio to find the Gem Film Company shut down and told by a guard that the contest was a scam and the "sharpies" arrested. Now stranded in the land of make-believe, and refusing to go back home in fear of being a laughing stock, Ella makes the best of her situation by "haunting the studio gates," sneaking past the guards and being chased around the lot, disrupting scenes currently in production and driving one of the directors (Alfred E. Green) out of his mind. With much more to follow, it gets better than this. Stay tuned and see what further develops for this Hollywood Cinderella.

Amusing at times as it is familiar, ELLA CINDERS, if remembered at all, has all the ingredients for surefire material in the Betty Hutton or Lucille Ball tradition. Funniest scene comes early in the story where Ella studies the method of acting from "The Art of Motion Picture Book," going through the motions with her eyes. An excellent use of special effects done in split screen, her eyes move individually in all directions. This scene alone was certainly one that had audiences laughing out of their seats back in 1926. This is followed by another set in the California bound train where Ella falls asleep, with all passengers getting off and to be awaken later surrounded by Indians, actually actors dressed as Indians who had come on at an earlier stop, being lead to believe the train was attacked. She becomes ill after smoking a cigar offered to her by an "Indian chief." Another highlight is the unbilled guest appearance of comedian Harry Langdon whom Ella mistakes as a wanna-be actor avoiding capture from the studio guards. "There's after me, too," she tells Langdon as he holds on to the door during a movie rehearsal.

Of a handful of Colleen Moore features produced during the silent era, ELLA CINDERS is best known due to availability on video cassette from various distributors and sporadic television revivals some decades ago, notably on the weekly public television series "The Toy That Grew Up," from the 1960s, complete with composed organ score, the same one used for the Grapevine Video Company with the running time of 70 minutes. While prints of ELLA CINDERS is in need of restoration, average or not so good prints in circulation don't deprive silent movie lovers from enjoying the misadventures of Miss Ella Cinders. (***)

Ella Cinders is like a modern day (well, for the 1920s) Cinderella story. A poor girl (Colleen Moore) living in a house with her stepmother and stepsisters like a servant has only things going right for her. She has the love of a sweet man in town (Lloyd Hughes) and a film contest that she wins. A group of men hold a beauty contest in town and the prize is a trip to Hollywood to become an actress. The stepsisters and half of the town think they will win the prize, but a funny picture puts Ella in the spotlight, sending her on a train to Hollywood. Once there, she finds that the place isn't what she dreamed it would be, but she cannot go home so she does her best to succeed.

Harry Langdon makes a very funny but short appearance in the movie. Even without his appearance, this movie would be a jewel. It is quickly paced, very funny, and stars one of the major stars of the silent era. Unfortunately, this film, along with most of Colleen Moore's other movies, is not commercially available. Bad bootleg prints are all that we will see until someone wises up to the quality of this movie and releases it on a quality DVD.

I watched this silent comedy with Colleen Moore and gorgeous Lloyd Hughes with my 6 year old daughter and we were rapt with attention all the way through. This film boasts a touching sweet romance, and many fine and unique comedy moments, such as Ella getting her picture taken for a beauty contest and having a fly land on her nose, and Lloyd's character using the missing shoe for measurements to buy her a pair of dress shoes when she goes off to Hollywood.

Unlike one commentator here however I didn't care for that organ score. I heard some copyrighted song musical phrases in there that were misplaced too, like a strain from Dr. Zhivago! Weird.

If you love Colleen Moore or want to learn more about her this is a film not to be missed. She was an excellent comedienne, even better than Mabel Normand.

Right up to the end, this is a wonderful bit of entertainment, primarily because of the star, the former Kathleen Morrison, Colleen Moore.

She's not only lovely to look at, not only completely adorable, she is one marvelous actress, apparently being re-discovered in recent years. (There is even a website: https://sites.google.com/site/colleenmooresite/)

The story is based on a comic strip of that name which is based, obviously, on the Cinderella story.

Ella opens the story being badly put-upon, naturally, but she has one ally and, while being the family servant during a party, learns there is a beauty contest coming up in their hometown of Roseville in which the winner is awarded a chance at film stardom in Hollywood.

(Fascinating coincidence: The story starts in "Roseville," no state identified {like Springfield in "The Simpsons"?} and a Duckduckgo search turns up this: "Colleen Moore, Marriage & Family Therapist, Roseville, CA"!)

Reading a "how-to" book on being an actor, Ella sees these words: "The greatest requisite to stardom is the eyes. Master the art of expressing every emotion with the eyes."

Following that scene is a masterpiece of special effects (slightly reminding me of Colleen's role in "Orchids and Ermine," or at least one scene therein) and evidence Ella learned the lesson.

Colleen Moore certainly did learn that book's lesson. Movie after movie starring the lovely lady gave us the evidence that her eyes did indeed express "every emotion."

Eyes and face, and, really, her entire being. Colleen Moore probably could have coasted along on her looks and personality, but she set out to be an actress, not just a star.

There are, interestingly, some slight parallels to "Ella Cinders" and Kathleen Morrison and how they accomplished what they did in Hollywood, except Kathleen grew up with a successful and loving family.

That family, though, consented to her winning her trip to Hollywood but all along figuring that in a few months she would tire of it and return home. She was 17, and obviously could not know her own mind.

Ha.

She stayed and was almost an immediate success, but still put in the effort to learn her craft.

Her life should be a movie.

On the other hand, "Ella Cinders" presents no surprises, except, perhaps, to viewers not familiar with Colleen Moore, not already knowing what an extraordinary performer she was.

As a long-time fan, I am happy to see the re-discovery of her. I first saw her in "Orchids and Ermine," presented almost yearly in the 1970s at The Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax Boulevard in Los Angeles, then run by the Hamptons, John and Dorothy (people to whom I will always owe a huge debt of gratitude for their dedication to silent movies).

"Ella Cinders," a thoroughly enjoyable film, is available in a good version at YouTube, although some will discount the jazz-era recordings used as sound-track.

I highly recommend "Ella Cinders."