Cinderella 2000

Ball Gown Down

Cinderella 2000
USA 1977 Directed by Al Adamson
Severin Blu Ray Zone A

Once again, Severin’s wonderful Al Adamson - The Masterpiece Collection, highlights another movie by the genre chameleon that, while not exactly a masterpiece, is certainly something completely different to his other films. This is from a time when films such as Flesh Gordon and Alice In Wonderland - An X-Rated Musical Fantasy were making quite a splash at the box office and, while not a hardcore sex film, Adamson’s response to these films was the musical science fiction sex comedy Cinderella 2000. It hit theatres more or less within a week or two of the very first Star Wars film and, I don’t know if this was a successful production (probably was, knowing Adamson’s low budgets and box office takings) but I’m sure it wasn’t the huge cash cow that George Lucas’ similarly space themed epic was.

After the usual kind of animated title sequence of photos being moved around on screen, something which is standard for a lot of Adamson’s films, we have a shot which is reminiscent of the ‘procured shot’ in Adamson’s earlier Horror Of The Blood Monsters (reviewed here) in that Adamson freezes the frame so he can show a view screen on the image. Appearing in the telecast is The Controller of the 2047 society, reminding the people of the world about their rules and filling the audience in on the basic premise. A world where ‘fornication’ is illegal due to overpopulation and sex is only permitted, by computer generated lottery, with Tom Prince (played by Vaughn Armstrong)... this version of the tale’s ‘Prince Charming’, who looks pretty much like Flash Gordon, it has to be said.

We then see a couple of sex scenes broken up by law enforcer Roscoe The Robot, who takes two of the prisoners, wearing their restraining bubble wrap, to be shrunken down to doll size for six months as punishment for their sexing. Actually, it’s been so long that almost anyone in this society did the deed that the couple under arrest were studying stick figure drawings in order to work out how to do it in the first place. When the lady is shrunken down to small size, she is literally a Barbie doll in someone’s hand until you get the close up shot where she’s played by the actress again.

And then, midst this backdrop, we pretty much get a futurised, sexed up version of Cinderella, in a society where sex is outlawed by an impotent controller figure and people who get ‘the hornies’ are taken away to a clinic for treatment, where they get zapped by a ray for discouragement... unless it doesn’t work, in which case they just get sexed up. This, of course, makes no sense but I don’t think we’re supposed to be paying much attention to the plot anyway.

Into this we have main protagonist Cindy (played by Catharine Burgess), her two sisters Stella (played by Adina Ross) and Bella (played by Bhurni Cowans) and her mother, the widow (played by Renee Harmon)... who keeps coming down with ‘the hornies’. We also have Jay B. Larson playing the ‘fairy godfather’ who looks like he’s in his late 30s or 40s and, it’s kind of telling that his next movie was playing a lead ‘teenager’ in Adamson’s Sunset Cove (reviewed here).

And it’s a silly film with bad jokes (they even throw in the “Hey Stella” moment from A Streetcar Named Desire), cheap sets, a terrible temper tantrum robot and some truly awful sex scene choreography. I mean, honestly, one guy is riding a girl in missionary position and he’s completely missing the target by a mile, in fact... because of the angle of the camera, you can see his penis just scraping along a sheet when it’s certainly supposed to be somewhere else from the way the couple are acting. Also, the sight of this lonesome member does nothing to communicate that the character is performing his scene with any sense of enthusiasm, if you know what I mean.  

That being said, a lot of the girls make for some good eye candy and Burgess and Larson seem to be doing some good acting in this. Indeed, Burgess seems to be the only one acting really naturally here and Larson is just having a great time waving his magic wand (no, shockingly enough it’s is not a euphemism here) and fixing it so Cindy can go to the ball... or at least go down on a couple.

Another plus is that, despite the cheapness of it, some of the cinematography is pretty good. There’s a wonderful shot in the forest, for example, when Cindy is framed on the wide, scope aspect ratio in the negative space made from the overlapping diagonals of the jagged branches. There’s even a split screen sequence in one of the musical numbers, at one point. Also, the songs themselves such as Doin’ Without and We All Need Love are actually pretty good and catchy.  

Other things which are interesting about this production is that sometimes characters break the fourth wall... such as when Roscoe The Robot comments that “All they talk about in this movie is sex, sex, sex” before breaking into song. Or the scene where a turned on Snow White is moaning about not getting any attention before one of the seven dwarfs, played by Adamson regular Angelo Rossitto, moans at her that this isn’t her movie... before the other six dwarves all chip in to help Snow White fulfil her desires (yeah, it totally goes there, in its own softcore way). As an addendum to that, the fairy tale Cinderella does exist in this version, as the lead character is reading it in the forest scene.

It does get quite surreal at times but this isn’t a bad thing, although I won’t even begin to describe what I shall call the ‘human bunnies’ scene. It does get kind of ‘off putting’ sometimes, though, when one of the characters breaks into song and, more often than not, the person dubbing them sounds nothing like the actor or actress when they are speaking.

The film is not too hard to sit through, though and it’s even quite engaging at times as various shenanigans, sexual or otherwise, all lead to the final sequences where Tom Prince, after having sex with all the ladies of the land to find Cindy, his ‘perfect fit’ so to speak... is whisked away by the Fairy Godfather to see the controller, whom Cindy cures of impotence with the powers of her special blow job skills. Much rejoicing is held throughout the land, an earlier song is revisited in a montage of universal happiness and the credits roll.

I don’t have anything else to offer here other than I was disappointed that, bearing in mind it’s a musical, I couldn’t find any kind of commercial soundtrack release, on CD or otherwise, for this movie (which seems to be a thing with Adamson directed movies, to be honest, so far I only have two CD soundtracks from his films). Would I recommend Cinderella 2000... well, it’s certainly not for everybody but there are some people I know who would enjoy the heady mixture of the ‘so bad it’s good’ vibe and the buxom lasses seen frolicking in the movie. Maybe one to check out with your tongue stuck firmly in your cheek (or possibly someone else’s cheek, who knows?).