Beauty and the Beast ***** (1991, voices of Paige O’Hara, Robby Benson, Angela Lansbury, Jerry Orbach, Richard White) – Classic Movie Review 2216

Directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise’s 1991 animated feature is a milestone as the Walt Disney studio’s 30th cartoon and happily it proves among the best of its kind. It is an exhilarating movie, an outstanding, beautifully drawn and infectiously entertaining version of the classic fairy tale.

At the time it was the most successful ever in the US, totalling nearly $220million at the American box-office alone and winning two Oscars for Best Original Song and Best Score and three Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture – Comedy/Musical. It is also notable as the very first full-length animated feature film in cinema history to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (producer Don Hahn). It won no awards at the Baftas.

At the time, Disney animated features had staged a remarkable comeback from a time of doldrums, mainly thanks to the success of The Little Mermaid (1989), and were so far ahead of the competition because of all the talent, money, love, imagination and painstaking care and attention to detail lavished on them. This one took $25million, three and a half years, 600 animators and more than one million drawings to make.

Paige O’Hara is the voice of Beauty (or Belle) and Robby Benson the Beast, while Angela Lansbury’s inimitable tones ring out delightfully as Mrs Potts and Jerry Orbach provides the voice of the singing candelabra Lumiere and sings the show-stopping number ‘Be Our Guest’. There’s no doubt about the encouraging success of the music, which was a triumph on Academy Awards night, with best original score by Alan Menken and best original song (‘Beauty and the Beast’) by Menken (music) and Howard Ashman (lyrics), who won the same Oscars for The Little Mermaid.

Astonishingly, two of their other songs were also Oscar nominated: ‘Be Our Guest’ and ‘Belle’ and the movie was also nominated for Best Sound as well as Best Picture. Ashman’s Oscar nomination and award were posthumous and his partner Bill Lauch accepted the award on his behalf. It is poignantly dedicated ‘To our friend, Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul, we will be forever grateful. Howard Ashman (1950-1991)’.

Disney later turned it into a hit stage show and in 2001 produced a splendidly refurbished version for the IMAX screen, with spruced-up images, additional animation, a restoration of the originally cut number ‘Human Again’ and a totally re-recorded stereo soundtrack by the original voice artistes. This marvellous Special Edition runs 91 minutes, with the original at 84 minutes. It was released in IMAX and other large format cinemas on January 1 2002.

It was re-released again in cinemas in 2012 for the first time in 3D. In this 3D re-release, the old Disney logo is replaced with the new one and the Walt Disney Animation Studios logo is added. These changes were also made in the 2010 Diamond Edition Blu-ray and DVD releases. In the closing credits of the 3D version, instead of a black background, they add in rough animation 3D silhouette drawings of all of the characters.

The screenplay is credited to Linda Woolverton, though many hands worked on the story, credited to Roger Allers (story supervisor), Kelly Asbury, Chris Sanders, Tony Ellery, Joe Ranft, Bruce Woodside, Burny Mattinson, Brian Pimental, Kevin Harkey, Robert Lence and Brenda Chapman. Jeanne-Marie Leprince de original source story is un-credited.

The voice cast also includes David Ogden Stiers (Cogsworth / Narrator), Richard White (the conceited Gaston), Bradley Pierce (Chip), Rex Everhart, Jesse Corti, Hal Smith, Jo Anne Worsley, Mary Kay Bergman, Brian Cummings, Alvin Epstein, Tony Jay, Alec Murphy, Kimmy Robertson, Hal Smith, Kath Soucie and Frank Welker.

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s story has been filmed many times, most notably by Jean Cocteau as La belle et la bête in 1946, starring Jean Marais and Josette Day.

Disney remade the story as the live-action musical Beauty and the Beast in 2017, with Dan Stevens, Emma Watson and Luke Evans, for release on 17 March.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2216

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