NAUGHTY CINDERELLA
1925
Naughty Cinderella is a "romantic song farce” (play with music) in three acts by Avery Hopwood, from the French play Pouche by Rene Peter and Henri Falk and featuring songs by A.L. Keith and Lee Sterling. The original production was produced by Charles Frohman and E. Ray Goetz and staged by W.H. Gilmore. It starred Irène Bordoni.
The play takes place in Paris and Venice. In the story, Germaine Leverrier, the wife of an Olympic athlete, has an affair with a man from Parisian society.
Frohman engaged the services of Paul Poiret to design the production.
Irène Bordoni costumed by Paul Poiret for the production. Photo by Pach Brothers from Vogue, December 15, 1925.
The play premiered on September 21, 1925 at Nixon’s Apollo Theatre on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
“Like most of the French comedies brought here for unblushing playgoers, its dialogue prickles with suggestiveness. It has evidently lost something in the adaptation, because it is only occasionally funny, a good bit of the conversation being in slang that has long passed out. We do not know whether ‘Naughty Cinderella’ will have long life or not, but we do know that it adds nothing to the American stage.” ~ PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
The play moved from Atlantic City to Washington DC, shuffling off to Buffalo, and Pittsburgh, before arriving in Brooklyn for a short stay.
Frohman recognized the play’s flaws and hired Wilson Mizner to act as play doctor, although he went uncredited. His participation was withheld until after the Broadway opening. At the end of the century, Wilson and his brother Addison were the subject of a musical by Stephen Sondheim, variously titled Bounce, Road Show, Gold! and Wise Guys.
“Hopwood... generally digs Into the gutter and hand out a mess of cheap vulgar rot.” ~ BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE
Meanwhile, at the same time Frohman’s Naughty Cinderella was moving toward Broadway, the Shuberts had also acquired the rights to Pouche, determined to create a full scale operetta from the material, which they named Riquette. When they learned of Naughty Cinderella, the Shuberts responded by naming their musical Naughty Riquette. As fate would have it, the battle of Naughtiness didn’t play out on Broadway, with Riquette waiting till late 1926 to join the Main Stem.
The play finally arrived on Broadway on November 4, 1925, at the Lyceum Theatre. It stayed for 121 performances, mostly due to Irène Bordoni’s star power.
Despite consistently poor reviews for the play, Bordoni was praised, and ticket sales were healthy.
The cast included Nat Pendleton (a professional wrestler) in the role of boxer K.O. Smith. His double duty proved fodder for publicity as the run wore on.
All four of the songs shoe-horned into Naughty Cinderella were sung by Bordoni.
After the play closed on Broadway, Bordoni took the play to Boston and Philly. At the end of March, Bordoni decided to tour to Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, where she would make her motion picture debut. Naughty Cinderella was abandoned for good because Frohman had found a new play for her.
In March 1926 casting for the film version was announced.
Paramount released the film in July 1926 under the title Good and Naughty. In 1929, Bordoni made her feature film debut in Cole Porter’s Paris, recreating the role she had played on Broadway.
In 1932, it was remade as This Is The Night starring Cary Grant (film debut), Thelma Todd, Lili Damita, and Charles Ruggles. Coincidentally, in 1933 there was a British film titled Naughty Cinderella, but the plot has nothing to do with the plays and films based on Pouche.
Naughty Cinderella finally returned to Atlantic City as Good and Naughty, on August 1, 1926 at the Colonial Theatre (later known as the Center Theatre) on Atlantic Avenue. The theatre closed in 1978. In April 1932, The Strand Theatre on the Boardwalk opposite Steel Pier, screened This Is The Night.
