Release Year: 1954

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Director: Billy Wilder

Writers: Billy Wilder, Ernest Lehman, Samuel Taylor (play)

Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden

Once upon a time…

You know what comes next. There's a beautiful girl. There's a handsome prince. There might be a few dragons or evil stepparents (why do fairy tales always hate on the stepmoms and stepdads?). There's love everlasting.

Oh, and there's a famous last line: and they lived happily ever after.

And Sabrina, which begins "once upon a time," is no exception. It's a fairy tale modeled on Cinderella, with a few twists and turns, a few 20th-century flourishes, some tee-hee-inducing midcentury innuendo, and dresses that only a fairy godmother named Givenchy could dream up.

Here's the setup: Sabrina is the working-class girl in love with the super-rich playboy. Her father is a lowly chauffeur, but he's scrimped and saved to send her to Paris to become a chef. The City of Lights is good to little Sabrina, and gives her the kind of makeover that only a chic European city can. Sabrina waltzes back to her home in Long Island with a sassy new haircut and a sumptuously lavish wardrobe.

And this is where the story of Cinderella and the story of Sabrina start to diverge.

First of all, Sabrina isn't as downtrodden as Cinderella; she has no step-sisters to abuse her, and she knows that she's très élégante. She comes back from the shadow of the Eiffel Tower seriously feeling herself.

The other twist in the Cinderella formula is that Sabrina doesn't exactly end up with the prince she expects. David—her original crush—is engaged to the daughter of a sugar magnate. David's older, crankier brother Linus is determined to keep that marriage on track since a business deal is riding on it.

So Linus decides to get Sabrina to fall in love with him so she doesn't want to marry David anymore. But oops: he ends up falling in love with her.

These changes make the basic Cinderella story a bit less traumatic, and a bit less pure. Director and writer Billy Wilder was famous for his sophisticated attitude towards sex (his later film, Kiss Me, Stupid, presents infidelity as a healthy marital aid). So it's no surprise that he steers his fairy tale towards sex comedy, with Sabrina cheerfully working to break up David's engagement, and Linus cynically designing to come between Sabrina and David.

In the original Cinderella, true love is love at first sight. In Sabrina, you need to consider a couple of other partners first… it's kind of like trying a glass slipper on for size, right?

Sex comedy + Cinderella turned out to be a very successful formula. Sabrina was nominated for a whole Parisian soufflé of Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Actress (for Audrey Hepburn), Best Story and Screenplay, and Best Costume Design, which was won by Edith Head.

Its reputation only grew over time; a 1995 remake featured Harrison Ford, and in 2002 it was placed in the National Film Registry. Everybody loves Cinderella—and, just like in the film itself, everybody loves Sabrina.

Cinderelly, Cinderelly: Night And Day It's Cinderelly

Sabrina is 100% a Cinderella story—which is actually kind of a problematic.

But you know the thing about problems? They're something that you should absolutely care about.

The Cinderella story is a wee bit misogynistic. Look at its message.

• Women should just sit around in pretty dresses waiting for their fairy godparents and princes to come and save them.
• Beauty is the only asset women need.
• The only kind of attractive foot is a small foot. (We rock double-digit sized kicks here at Shmoop—our footprints are the reason that Yeti myths exist—and Cinderella depresses us.)

The Cinderella story's antiquated. It's ridiculous. Whether you're studying the original hyper-violent Grimm Bros. version, the Disney flick with those creepy talking mice, or Billy Wilder's 1954 Sabrina-as-Cinderella Oscar-winner… the Cinderella story is a little messed up.

Revenge of Cinderella

But it's also unexpectedly resilient. Over the years, retellings of the Cinderella story have continued to be amazingly, intimidatingly popular. Pretty Woman (1990)— a story about a prostitute who falls in love with a corporate tycoon—was a huge hit, and the Twilight franchise (about an awkward girl who's swept away by a super-rich vampire) was a massive sensation.

Cinderella may be anti-feminist, but lots of women find her enormously appealing. What is it about the poor girl/rich dude story that has such a lasting fascination?

And—and this is the major point to ponder—does Sabrina succeed in being more than a Cinderella story?

Sabrina is a tweaked version of Cinderella, because it doesn't set Sabrina up as a desperate young maiden. Instead, she goes to Paris, goes to culinary school, and comes back determined (with French sophistication) to break up her crush's engagement. She makes both the male leads fall head over heels in love with her. In other words, the princes don't sweep her away; she sweeps them away.

But is this different enough from the more traditional tellings of this literal rags-to-riches fairy tale to make a difference? Is Sabrina an improved Cinderella, or just a Cinderella that happens to wear haute couture and kiss more than one Prince Charming? Does she wield any real power in this love story?

Sabrina—maybe more than any other Cinderella story—asks you to think about gender, class, love and power… and how they're all mixed together like a French sauce béchamel.