An eccentric inventor but loving father who supports Belle's dreams, Maurice gets lost on his way to the fair to present his latest creation and ends up stumbling upon the castle of the beast. He is made a prisoner until Belle exchanges her freedom for his.[1]
Development[]
In the original 1989 storyline of the film, Maurice was a merchant who lost all his money, as in the original tale. His reason for leaving the house before finding the Beast's Castle was to sell his late wife's music box so that he could pay his taxes. According to animator Andreas Deja, his design in that version of the film was based on actor Jack Lemmon. In addition, his wife was mentioned to be deceased in this version, while in the final version, Belle's mother is never alluded to.
In the 1988 storyline for the film, Maurice overall was similar to his depiction in the original tale, although he was instead an inventor like in the final film rather than a failed merchant like in the original story.
Personality[]
Maurice is an unconventional, yet humble inventor residing in a small French village with his daughter, Belle and horse, Philippe (what became of his wife is unknown). Maurice hopes to someday create an invention capable of reforming the life of his family for the better and is regularly hard at work in his basement/workshop on various contraptions. Though they're usually met with failure, his dream and Belle's support motivates him to push forward each time.
Maurice is widely known throughout the village as "crazy old Maurice". Due to the uniqueness of his inventions, he is often looked down upon and thought to be mentally unstable, albeit harmless enough not to cause any legitimate concern amongst the townsfolk; they would much rather ridicule him as a means to garner a few laughs. Belle takes after him in being a fairly unconventional individual and receives a similar form of critical judgment from the townsfolk because of this. Maurice, however, tends to ignore the opinions of others, simply putting his focus towards his work and family.
Physical appearance[]
Maurice is a short and overweight elderly man with a half-bald head, white hair with sideburns, a thickly mustached, thick dark gray eyebrows, green eyes, and fair skin. For almost the entire film, he has a rolled up long-sleeved light green shirt, combined with trousers and brown shoes. At the end of the film, he wears the same clothing but blue with a white shirt. In a short scene, he wears an orange apron, and in other scenes, he wears a dark green cloak with a golden button and also has a brown hat. When he goes to bed, Maurice wears a short-sleeved pink nightgown with a gray button and a fuchsia shirt.
One day, when Belle comes home from the bookstore, she sees her father working on a new invention that backfired on him, and, after boosting his morale and making sure he's all right, asks him if he thinks that she's odd because there's no one in town she can talk to. Maurice then asks about Gaston who's a handsome fella, but Belle states that he isn't the right man for her because although he's handsome, he's also rude and conceited to which Maurice replies, "Don't you worry, 'cause this invention's gonna be the start of a new life for us." After Maurice tries out his new invention and it works really well, he heads off to the fair on Philippe to enter his invention and make lots of money.
While on the way to the fair, Maurice and Phillippe get lost in the woods, and when they try to go down a dark path, they encounter bats and wolves. When Maurice tries to get Phillippe under control, the horse throws him off and runs away, causing him to drop his lantern, which shatters and explodes. When Maurice recovers from his fall, he sees the wolves and runs down a cliff with the wolves chasing him. Luckily Maurice manages to find the gate to the Beast's Castle and manages to get it open and shut before the wolves can follow him. Once inside, Maurice calls out for help, not noticing Lumiere the candle, and Cogsworth the clock (or not realizing they were animated). When he picks up Lumiere and notices that he's alive, he accidentally drops him. He also grabs Cogsworth and winds him up and accidentally sneezes in Cogsworth's face. Feeling sorry for the old man, Lumiere offers Maurice to the Beast's chair where he sits down and is offered tea by Mrs. Potts the teapot and her son Chip the teacup. Just as Maurice is about to drink his tea, the doors open, and a huge, ugly Beast storms in, angrily asking Maurice who he is and what he's doing there in the castle. As Maurice frighteningly tries to explain what happened to him in the forest, the Beast mistakenly assumes that Maurice came there to stare at him and locks Maurice in the dungeon.
When Belle comes to the castle, she finds her father in the dungeon, but before she can free him, the Beast appears. Belle offers to take her father's place in the dungeon, to which the Beast agrees, despite Maurice's pleas to Belle to reconsider and not wanting her to go through with it and sets Maurice free before returning him to the village on a horseless carriage called a palanquin that walks like a spider without allowing him to say goodbye to Belle.
When Maurice gets back to town, he goes to the local tavern and tries to get Gaston and the villagers to help him rescue Belle from the Beast, but they throw Maurice out, having previously dismissed him as a "crazy old loon". This also gives Gaston a plan to blackmail Belle into marrying him, which is that he bribes Monsieur D'Arque, the owner of the local insane asylum, to lock up Maurice unless Belle agrees to marry Gaston. When Maurice gets back home, he decides that if no one will help him, he'll go back to the castle and get Belle out himself. He leaves right before Gaston and LeFou show up to put their plan into place.
When Maurice is trying to find the castle in the woods, he gets cold and sick before he passes out in the woods. Luckily, Belle uses the Beast's Enchanted Mirror to find him and takes him back home.
When Maurice awakes, he is in bed at home with Belle. He is happy to see Belle again and asks her how she escaped the Beast. Belle tells her father that the Beast has changed his ways and let her go free, giving her his magic mirror to keep. Monsieur D'Arque shows up and tells Belle he has come to take Maurice to the asylum where they'll "take very good care of him." Belle insists that her father isn't crazy, but when Maurice tries to explain to them about the Beast again, LeFou and the villagers laugh at him and two of D'Arque's men take Maurice away. Gaston tells Belle that he'll help her free Maurice if she marries him, but Belle angrily refuses and rushes inside. She comes back outside and proves that her father isn't crazy by showing the village the Beast through the Enchanted Mirror.
Because of this evidence, Maurice is freed since everyone has seen that he was telling the truth. Gaston convinces the villagers that the Beast is dangerous and sets off to attack the Beast, locking Maurice and Belle in their cellar to prevent them from warning the Beast. Luckily, Chip (who snuck back to the village with Belle by stowing away in her saddlebag) uses Maurice's invention to free Maurice and Belle, and they ride off back to the castle on Philippe. He is left at the entrance with Chip when Belle has Philippe kick in the door and she rushes inside. He is not seen again until the end, but it is assumed he must have followed Belle into the castle and encountered Lumiere, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts whom he informed of what was happening to their master, which is why they came rushing into his room in time to see him get stabbed by Gaston.
In the end, after the spell is lifted and the Beast and his servants are restored to their human forms, Maurice watches happily by the side of Mrs. Potts (who is holding Chip) and laughs upon hearing Chip asking his mother if he still has to sleep in cupboard as Belle and the Prince dance.
Maurice makes a cameo in the present-day events of the sequel but doesn't speak. In a long-distance shot of the castle ballroom, he is first seen being served tea at the fireplace by Mrs. Potts with whom he is apparently chatting. A few minutes later, he is seen listening to Mrs. Potts as she begins her story about last year's Christmas between Belle and the Beast, at which he was not present.
An emoticon version of Maurice appears in the Beauty and the Beast entry of the As Told by Emoji short series.
Maurice is briefly seen posing for the group photo along other characters from Beauty and the Beast, while holding Chip, behind Cinderella and Prince Charming in Once Upon a Studio.
Maurice doesn't actually appear in person, due to it taking place between Belle receiving the library and the end of Something There where he was stuck in the Black Forest searching for Belle to get her out of the castle, though he was mentioned a few times, and also appeared in flashbacks For issues 7, 8, 9, and 10. His most prominent appearance was in issue 8, where Belle relayed a story to Chip about how they won a fair despite nearly missing it (due to the Bimbettes' actions in order to ensure Belle didn't return and thus they actually had a chance at Gaston) while they were caught in a blizzard and were in danger of freezing to death while retrieving holly bushes. He also appeared in a flashback in the BATB story for the fifth issue of the successor story Disney Comic Hits, where he gave for Belle as a Christmas gift a box sled so she could go sledding with her friends.
Maurice also appeared in both issues of the Disney Comics serial. He and Belle had a brief cameo in the first story arc in a flashback, where he tells Belle that not all men are like that when they witnessed the Prince acting rude to an old woman (implied to be the Enchantress who later cursed the Prince). In the Bothered story arc, Maurice has a more major role, where he was working on an automated truffle finder with Pierre, their pet pig, being the machine's sensor. He has Belle go outside to play with the other kids, despite Belle's insistence against it (also briefly joking with Pierre that Belle might consider him and the pig to not be any different when Belle implied that she will always view men as pigs). He later managed to save Belle from a cellar by accident while conducting a test-run on the truffle finder after she was trapped in there by boys playing pirates and a bear (the latter implied to be the Enchantress in disguise). In the second issue's first story arc, Maurice, alongside Belle, returned home dejected due to not being allowed into the fair after his attempt at an automated clothes washer ripped one of the judges' wife's dress, despite his insistence that it was good odds due to "nine out of 10 dresses not ripping". He later attempted to capture an owl when Belle attempted to explore the woods that she found, but it disappeared and were eventually forced to leave by a lone wolf (both the owl and the wolf were implied to be the Enchantress in disguise). Maurice then relayed a story about an invention he was planning.
Maurice does not actually appear in Kingdom Hearts II, although he was given a mention by Belle. Its prequel, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, similarly only mentioned Maurice.
He later made an appearance in Kingdom Hearts χ, where he and Belle were attacked by Rabid Dog Heartless and needed to be saved by the player character.
Maurice makes no live appearances in the parks but his cottage is featured in the Beauty and the Beast-themed part of Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom. Maurice also has a spell card known as "Maurice's Wood Chopper" in the attraction Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom. Also in Fantasyland, Maurice is the spotlight character of "Maurice's Amazing Popping Machine", a little eating area.
The idea of Maurice being an inventor came from Howard Ashman. He planned to write a song called "The Invention Convention". There was a whole sequence based on that planned song where Maurice was originally going to be lost on his way back home after the fair. But after seeing too much time was spent on the sequence, that and the song had to be cut.
The song "Be Our Guest" was originally going to be sung to Maurice instead of Belle. This idea was more faithful to the original story, in which Beauty's father is provided with food upon arriving at the Beast's castle. The change was made after it was decided that such a grand number should not be wasted on a secondary character. A clip of Angela Lansbury (the voice of Mrs. Potts) recording for the original version of the song can be seen in the Beauty and the Beast trailer featured on the 1991 VHS release of The Jungle Book.
In the original tale, Maurice was a wealthy merchant and not an inventor. He had moved his family to the provincial area as he lost everything when his ships were lost at sea and a lightning storm had burned down his manor, but he handles the adversity squarely as he struggles to rebuild the family fortune somehow. A difference in the tale and the movie is that Maurice's wife was present and that he had five children to which Beauty was the youngest and closest to her father, as well as being most supportive of her parents in their adversity. As in the film, Maurice did take refuge in the castle after getting lost in a dark forest, the difference being is that he was drawn out to the coast where one of his ships was found, only to arrive to see it had been plucked clean by pirates. When Maurice was in the castle, he was perplexed why food and accommodations were ready for him while the castle was supposedly abandoned (in the tale the Beast took care of the castle by himself). Only when Maurice plucked a rose from the garden did the Beast reveal himself and was angry with Maurice for pilferage when the Beast had been a good host and demanded to meet this "Beauty" the rose was for.
In a short-lived comic book series, some years before Belle and the Beast meet, Maurice is shown somewhat younger with a full, dark brown set of hair.
Throughout the movie, Maurice's socks are mismatched (one striped, one solid color) as a sign of his eccentricity.
The reason why Maurice appears in The Enchanted Christmas is because Rex Everhart was supposed to reprise his role.
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