Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Productions and originally released to theaters on January 29, 1959 by Buena Vista Film Distribution. The sixteenth animated feature in the Disney Animated Canon, it was the last animated feature produced by Walt Disney to be based upon a fairy tale (after his death, the studio returned to the genre with The Little Mermaid), as well as the last cel animated feature from Disney to be inked by hand before the xerography process took over. It is also the first animated feature to be shot in Super Technirama 70, one of many large-format widescreen processes (only one more animated film, The Black Cauldron, has been shot in Super Technirama 70). It spent nearly the entire decade of the 1950s in production: the story work began in 1951, voices were recorded in 1952, animation production took from 1953 until 1958, and the stereophonic musical score was recorded in 1957.
It was originally a failure and did not make up the huge cost of the film. Along with the mixed critical reception, it was also noted to be the film that made Walt Disney lose interest in the animation medium. However, the subsequent re-releases proved massively successful, and critics and audiences have since hailed it as an animated classic.
Plot
Princess Aurora is named after the Roman goddess of the dawn "because she fills her father and mother's lives with sunshine." While still an infant, she is betrothed to the equally-young Prince Phillip (their parents want to unite their respective kingdoms under a marriage between them). At her christening, the three good fairies Flora (in red), Fauna (in green), and Merryweather (in blue) arrive to bless her. Flora gives her the gift of beauty, which is described in a song as "gold of sunshine in her hair" and "lips that shame the red, red rose". Fauna gives her the gift of song. At this point, Maleficent, the film's villain and self-proclaimed "mistress of all evil", appears on the scene. Claiming to be upset at not being invited, she curses Aurora to die when she pricks her finger on a spinning wheel's spindle before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday. Fortunately, Merryweather has not yet given her a gift, so she uses hers to change Maleficent's curse, so Aurora will not die when she pricks her finger; instead, she will sleep until she is awakened by True Love's Kiss. Knowing Maleficent is extremely powerful and will stop at nothing to see her curse fulfilled, the fairies take Aurora to live with them in the forest, where they can keep her safe from any harm until she turns sixteen and the curse is made void. To fully protect her, they even change her name to Briar Rose to conceal her true identity.
Aurora grows into a very beautiful woman, with sunshine golden blonde hair, rose-red lips, violet eyes, and a beautiful singing voice. She is raised in a cottage in the forest by the fairies, whom she believes are her aunts. One day, while out picking berries, she sings to entertain her animal friends; her angelic voice gains the attention of Phillip, who had grown into a handsome young man and is out riding in the woods. When they meet, they instantly fall in love. Realizing that she has to return home, she flees from him without ever learning his name. Despite promising to meet him again, she is unable to return, as her "aunts" choose that time to reveal the truth of her birth to her and to tell her that she is betrothed to a prince named Phillip. They then take her to her parents.
Meanwhile, Phillip returns home telling his father about a peasant girl he met and wishes to marry in spite of his prearranged marriage to Aurora. King Hubert tries to convince Phillip to marry Aurora instead of the peasant girl but fails.
Princess Aurora, the heroine in Sleeping Beauty
The fairies and Aurora return to the castle. Unfortunately, Maleficent uses her magic to lure Aurora away from her chambers and up into the tallest tower, where a spinning wheel awaits her. Fascinated by it, she touches the spindle, pricking her finger. As had been foretold by the curse, she is put under a sleeping spell. The fairies place her on her bed with a red rose in her hand and cause a deep sleep to fall over the entire kingdom until they can find a way to break the curse. They realize the answer is Phillip, but he has been kidnapped by Maleficent to prevent him from kissing Aurora and waking her up. The fairies sneak into Maleficent's lair, aid Phillip in escaping and explain to him the story of Maleficent's curse. Armed with a magic sword and shield, he battles Maleficent when she turns herself into a gigantic fire-breathing dragon. He flings the sword, plunging it into the her heart and killing her. He climbs into Aurora's chamber and removes the curse with a kiss.
As the film ends, Aurora and Phillip arrive at the ballroom, where the former is happily reunited with her parents. Then, she dances together with Phillip, each happy to learn that their betrothed and their beloved are one and the same.
Cast
- Mary Costa as Aurora
- Bill Shirley as Prince Phillip
- Eleanor Audley as Maleficent
- Taylor Holmes as King Stefan
- Verna Felton as Flora
- Barbara Jo Allen as Fauna
- Barbara Luddy as Merryweather
- Bill Thompson as King Hubert
Uncredited
- Bob Amsberry as Maleficent's Goon #1
- Candy Candido as Maleficent's Goon #2
- Pinto Colvig as Maleficent's Goon #3
- Dallas McKennon as Owl, Diablo
- Marvin Miller as Narrator
Development
Story development
Early Ideas
Early versions of the story indicated fairies' names as Tranquillity, Fernadell, and Merryweather (the latter ultimately remained in the final film).
After the title of project was registered in January 1950, Bill Peet, Ted Sears, and Winston Hibler (later joined by Erdman Penner, Joe Rinaldi, Ralph Wright, and Milt Banta) began the story development. From the very beginning of the project the writers decided to thoroughly rework the plot of Perrault's tale, deleting all unnecessary elements, particularly, the "bizarre" second act of the tale, and finding strength in the romance, since they felt little romance was developed between the strange prince and the princess. On May 15, 1951, the first outline (which was used as a basic for the film's plot until the summer of 1952) was written; it featured a wake-up kiss as a climactic moment, as well as the meeting between the prince and princess before the latter falls asleep. Shortly before his sixteenth birthday princess, wishing to explore the world outside the castle walls, was to change the clothes with her maidservant and would have secretly escaped into the forest at the bottom of the hill, where she would have met and fell in love with the prince (in later versions of the story the place of meeting was rewritten as a fair). Then the prince would have went on a journey to faraway land and returned a few years later to find the princess and wake her up with his kiss. The outline also indicated the names of fairies, the number of which was reduced from eight to four (three good and one evil), and their corresponding magical abilities: Tranquillity, the Fairy of Dreams, Fernadell, the Fairy of Forest, Merryweather, the Fairy of Elements, and Maleficent, the Fairy of Darkness.
Early designs of Maleficent depicted her as a more inhuman, "fairy-like" character.
Another challenge was to increase the conflict in the plot, so the story team decided to significantly expand the role of the evil fairy; however, it was chosen to turn her into a far more powerful and sinister character, the opposite of the depiction of the old hag in the original tale. At this point of story development, Maleficent was to conjure an indestructible spinning wheel, which the king and queen would have unsuccessfully tried to get rid of, until in desperation they would have locked their daughter in the castle walls and not let her out. On the day of princess' sixteen birthday Maleficent, disguised as an elderly spinner, would have tricked her to prick the finger with a spindle of the cursed spinning wheel, and then she would have surrounded the castle with impenetrable wall of thorns. At the climax Maleficent was to engage in fight with the prince, obstructing his passage with various hazards. At the same time, the writers increased the role of the good fairies by turning them into comical companions and protectors of the princess, in the same way they did with the dwarfs in Snow White. The first outline and later versions included fairies' attempt to surround the castle with a protective circle, through which "no evil thing that walks, or flies, or crawls could ever pass", on the day of princess' sixteenth birthday (it turned out to be unsuccessful, as Maleficent was able to enter the castle, disguising herself as a fish, caught by the pantry boy). The fairies were also to cast a sleeping spell on the castle when Maleficent's curse would have been fulfilled, and at the climax, they would have helped the prince to overcome the hazards on his way through the thorn forest. Among other things, the plot introduced a talking vulture who was to become a comically incompetent "hench-bird" of Maleficent and would have tried to ingratiate himself with the animals of Fernadell to find out the information for his mistress (although early versions of the plot, including the first outline, depicted the evil fairy's hench-bird as a huge falcon, who was a far darker character).
Reworking
The name of the lovely Sleeping Beauty is "Princess Aurora" (that means "sunrise" or "dawn" in Latin, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish), in the film, as in Tchaikovsky's ballet; this name occurred in Perrault's version, not as the princess' name, but as her daughter's.[1] In hiding, she is called Briar Rose (from German Dornröschen, the name of the princess in the Brothers Grimm variant).[2] The prince was given the only princely name familiar to Americans in the 1950s: "Prince Phillip", named after Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The wicked fairy was aptly named Maleficent (which means "Evil-doer").
Princess Aurora's long, thin, willowy body shape was inspired by that of Audrey Hepburn. In addition, Walt Disney had suggested that all three fairies should look alike, but veteran animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston contrasted this idea saying that having them be like that wouldn't be exciting. Additionally, the idea originally included seven fairies instead of three.
Several story points for the film came from discarded ideas for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They include Maleficent's capture of the Prince and the Prince's daring escape from her castle. Disney discarded these ideas from Snow White because his artists were not able to draw a human male believably enough at the time.
Walt Disney's absence
During the production of Sleeping Beauty Walt was busy with many other projects, such as the building of Disneyland, television shows, and live-action films, like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; therefore, he wasn't as involved in film's development as it was in case with previous films. This resulted in constant changes of film's release date, as well as temporary delay of production that took place between 1954 and early 1956. Despite this, Disney was ultimately able to take part in story's rewriting process, particularly, he personally reworked the scene where the Good Fairies decide they must rescue Phillip from Maleficent's domain, so that it would have more emotion and impact (early storyboards for this scene show that it was originally to end with fairies finding Phillip's hat). Also Walt personally cut out a good portion of humor, because he felt it would be more fitting for "Donald Duck shorts", rather than for feature film.
Art direction
The film holds a notable position in Disney animation as the last Disney feature to use hand-inked cels. Its art direction, which Walt Disney wanted to look like a living illustration, was not in the typical Disney style. Because WDFA had already made two features based on fairy tales - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella, Walt decided this one to stand out from its predecessors by choosing a different visual style. The film eschewed the soft, rounded look of earlier Disney features for a more stylized one. Since Super Technirama 70 was used, it also meant the backgrounds could contain more detailed and complex artwork than ever used in an animated film before.
Disney artist Eyvind Earle was the film's production designer, and Disney gave him a significant amount of freedom in designing the settings and selecting colors for the film. He also painted the majority of the backgrounds himself. He took much of his inspiration from medieval art (particularly the millefleurs style of 15th-century tapestries), which tended toward a certain flatness and perspective lessness, most notably the French manuscript that was written by the Limbourg Brothers. The elaborate paintings usually took seven to ten days to paint; by contrast, a typical animation background took only one workday to complete. Disney's decision to give Earle so much artistic freedom was not popular among the Disney animators, who had until the film exercised some influence over the style of their characters and settings.
Live-action reference footage
Before animation production began, every shot in the film was done in a live-action reference version, with live actors in costume serving as models for the animators. The role of Prince Phillip was modeled by Ed Kemmer, who had played Commander Buzz Corry on television's Space Patrol five years before Sleeping Beauty was released. For the final battle sequence, Kemmer was photographed on a wooden buck. Among the actresses who performed in reference footage for this film included Spring Byington, Frances Bavier ("Aunt Bea" from The Andy Griffith Show), and Helene Stanley who was the live reference for the title role of Cinderella. The role of King Stefan was modeled by Hans Conried, the voice and model of both Captain Hook and George Darling in Peter Pan.
All the live actors' performances were either screened for the animators' reference or rotoscoped (traced from live-action to animation), as Walt Disney insisted that much of the film's character animation be as close to live-action as possible.
Reception
1986's re-release poster
During its original release in 1959, the film earned approximately $5.3 million in box office rentals. Its production costs, which totaled $6 million, made it the most expensive Disney film up to that point, and over twice as expensive as each of the preceding three Disney animated features: Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Lady and the Tramp. It high production costs, coupled with the underperformance of much of the rest of Disney's 1959–1960 release slate resulted in the company posting its first annual loss in a decade for the fiscal year 1960, and massive layoffs were done throughout the animation department.
The film was met with mixed reviews from critics, often citing the film being slowly paced and having little character development. Nevertheless, it has sustained a strong following and is today hailed as one of the best-animated films ever made, thanks to its stylized designs by painter Eyvind Earle who also was the art director for it, its lush music score, and its large-format 70mm widescreen and stereophonic sound presentation.
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a "Certified Fresh" 91% from 34 reviews with an average rating of 7.7/10. Its consensus states that "This Disney dreamscape contains moments of grandeur, with its lush colors, magical air, one of the most menacing villains in the Disney canon."
Like Alice in Wonderland, which was not initially successful either, the film was never re-released theatrically in Walt Disney's lifetime. However, it had many re-releases in theaters over the decades. It was re-released theatrically in 1970, 1979 (in 70mm 6 channel stereo, as well as in 35 mm stereo and mono), 1986 and 1995. A 1993 re-release was planned, but was later canceled. Its successful reissues have made it the second most successful on released in 1959, second to Ben-Hur, with a lifetime gross of $51.6 million. When adjusted for ticket price inflation, the domestic total gross comes out to $478.22 million, placing it in the top 40 of films.
Release
Disney's distribution arm, Buena Vista Distribution, originally released the film to theaters in both standard 35mm prints and large-format 70mm prints. The Super Technirama 70 prints were equipped with six-track stereophonic sound; some CinemaScope-compatible 35mm Technirama prints were released in four-track stereo, and others had monaural soundtracks. On the initial run, it was paired with the short musical/documentary film Grand Canyon which won an Academy Award.
Worldwide release dates
- Argentina: July 9, 1959
- United Kingdom: July 29, 1959
- Germany: October 30, 1959 (West); October 10, 1969 (East)
- Italy: December 1, 1959
- France: December 16, 1959
- Netherlands: December 17, 1959 (English version); April 14, 1960 (Dutch version)
- Finland: December 18, 1959
- Ireland: December 18, 1959
- Sweden: December 19, 1959
- Australia: December 24, 1959
- Mexico: December 24, 1959
- Denmark: December 26, 1959
- Norway: December 26, 1959
- Hong Kong: May 26, 1960
- Japan: July 23, 1960 (distributed by RKO Pictures Japan)
- Spain: October 3, 1960 (Madrid)
- Brazil: December 22, 1960
- Portugal: April 2, 1961
- Poland: 1962
- Turkey: April 23, 1962
- Hungary: June 30, 1966
- Kuwait: May 24, 1999
Home Video
- Main article: Sleeping Beauty (video)
In 1986, the film was first released on both VHS and Laserdisc under the Classics collection, becoming the first Disney Classics video to be digitally processed in Hi-Fi stereo. Then it underwent an extensive digital restoration in 1997, and that version was released on both VHS and Laserdisc again (this time with the Laserdisc in widescreen version, albeit letterboxed) as part of the Masterpiece collection, and in 2003 was released to DVD in a 2-disc "Special Edition" that included both the original widescreen version and a pan and scan version as well. A Platinum Edition DVD/Blu-ray Disc was released on October 7, 2008 with a never-before-seen 2.55:1 expanded version of the film. The DVD/Blu-ray returned to the Disney Vault in 2010. It was released as a Diamond Edition title on October 7, 2014.
Videos
Gallery
Trivia
- "Briar Rose" is another name given to the character and appears in the German version of the Brothers Grimm as Dornröschen.
- Some artists who worked on this film came back to Disney in 1988-89 to work on Oliver & Company, The Little Mermaid, and The Rescuers Down Under. These artists included Don Selders (Assistant Animator), Eve Fletcher (Ink & Paint Artist), Ann Oliphant (Animation Checking), Darlene Kanagy (Ink & Paint), Gordon Bellamy (Assistant Animator), Tom Ferriter (Assistant Animator), Eleanor Dahlen (Ink and Paint), Sheila Brown (Assistant Animator), and Valentine Vreeland Paul (Ink and Paint Artist).
- Maleficent's curse can be fulfilled at any time before sunset on Aurora's sixteenth birthday.
- Aurora is one of the seven Princesses of Heart in the popular Disney/Squaresoft game Kingdom Hearts, and Maleficent is a villain in all three Kingdom Hearts games. The good fairies appear in Kingdom Hearts II, giving Sora new clothes.
- The character of Aurora's mother, the Queen, has no name credited to her. The only version of the story which gives her a name is a 1993 adaptation by A.L. Singer, in which she is named Queen Leah.
- The cry voiced by Lucille La Verne as The Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was re-used for Maleficent when her dragon-form is pierced by Prince Phillip's sword.
- Rich Animation Studio's animated film The Swan Princess was quite similar to this one, in that it also had a princess named Odette being cursed by a sorcerer (just as Maleficent cursed Aurora). In the end, Odette died temporarily (as Aurora fell into a deep sleep) and a prince named Derek saved her by killing the sorcerer, Sir Rothbart, who had turned into the Great Animal (just as Maleficent transformed into a dragon and Prince Phillip killed her and saved Aurora with "True Love's Kiss"). Interestingly, though the story is also based on Tchaikovsky's ballet (Swan Lake), the filmmakers chose not to adapt the ballet score, going instead with a generic '90's pop score by Lex de Azevedo.
- The cookies the fairies eat with tea are shaped like Mickey Mouse's head and ears.
- The film was made whilst Walt Disney was building Disneyland (hence the four year production time). To help promote the film, Imagineers declared the castle there to be Sleeping Beauty's (it was originally to be Snow White's).
- Second only to Dumbo (who didn't speak at all), this Disney title character has the fewest lines of actual dialogue throughout the entire film. In fact, Aurora says nothing at all in the film's second half, even after being awakened from the sleeping spell.
- The musical score throughout the film was provided by the then Graunke Symphony Orchestra (since 1990 called the Munich Symphony Orchestra), under the direction of the score's adapter, George Bruns.
- The particular melody that plays as Phillip and Aurora descend the stairs toward the film's end was a branle couppé (a short, vigorous country dance) entitled "Cassandre" written by Renaissance composer Thoinot Arbeau, adapted ca. 1590 as a march in honor of King Henri IV of France, and used as something of a national anthem by French royalists; Tchaikovsky, who had a fondness for national anthems, incorporated it into his ballet score to represent the royal court of "Florestan XIV."
- The complex and detailed background paintings, most of which were done by Frank Armitage and Eyvind Earle, usually took seven to ten times longer to paint than average, which takes about a workday to complete. As opposed to having the backgrounds be designed to match the characters, the film's characters were designed to match the backgrounds.
- The film is the only Disney one with square trees.
- The debate of the setting of this film has been a problem for a long time.
- The moment where Aurora pricks her finger, as well as the fight of Prince Phillip with Maleficent, are referenced in the Nightwish song "Fantasmic", with the lyrics "Maleficent's fury/The spindle so luring/Dragon fight".
- Upon release, the scene where Prince Phillip encounters the dragon was thought too intense for children.
- The original concept for the film began in 1950 (after the studio had animated two other princess fairy tales). Work on it was delayed because Walt Disney's attention was turned to the building of Disneyland.
- Walt Disney had originally envisioned the film as his masterpiece.
- Because the film was such a box office disappointment, Disney focused more on live-action films for two years (there were ten before Disney released another animated feature: 101 Dalmatians. The style of animation in this one was radically different possibly because it had been such a failure).
- The film was in the archive for seven years.
- The film appears as one of the transition levels in Epic Mickey, found in Dark Beauty Castle.
- The film is the first Disney animated classic to have the 2006 Walt Disney Pictures logo at the end of current releases.
- The studios have no record as to who provided the voices for the Queen nor the Royal Herold.
- Barbara Jo Allen (Fauna) was also known in some of her other films as Vera Vague and her last film role as the Scullery Maid in The Sword in the Stone.
- A flame thrower was used to create the dragon breath sound effect for the climax of the film, with training films supplied by the US Army.
- Barbara Luddy (Merryweather) lent her voice to Lady in the earlier Disney film Lady and the Tramp. After this one, she would also end up being the voices of Mother Rabbit in Robin Hood and Kanga in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
- Eleanor Audley, (Maleficent), also provided the voice of Lady Tremaine in Cinderella nine years earlier.
- Before Taylor Holmes was chosen as the voice of King Stefan, Hans Conried provided some of the voicing, as heard in the demo, after doing the voices and models of both Captain Hook and Mr. Darling in Peter Pan.
- Verna Felton (Flora) previously lent her voice to the Elephant Matriarch and Mrs. Jumbo in Dumbo, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland and Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp. After this one, her last film for Disney was providing the voice for Winifred in The Jungle Book.
- Maleficent's horned headdress and bat's-wing-like sleeves, besides being reminiscent of the popular images of horned devils and dragons, reflect actual women's costumes of the fourteenth century.
- The animators couldn't decide what dress color Aurora should wear, so they decided to make it part of the storyline with the fairies.
- In the opening previews of the 1997 VHS re-released under the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection line, there was a commercial for Disney's Magic Artist on CD-ROM.
References in other media
- The film was referenced in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code as an allegory of the Grail quest.
- The music to the song "Once Upon a Dream" is based on a waltz from Tchaikovsky's ballet Sleeping Beauty, as is almost all the rest of the music in the film. It was also used in recent commercials for Sargento Cheese as well as a couple of Fred Quimby era Tom & Jerry cartoons.
- The sleeping spell was spoofed on Hanna-Barbera's The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo in 1985 in which Scooby-Doo must save Daphne Blake and Princess Esmerelda from this spell caused by Maldor the Malevolent. Interestingly, in a What's New Scooby-Doo? episode, Daphne wore an outfit similar to one of Aurora's.
External links
- Sleeping Beauty (soundtrack) on Disney Wiki
Sleeping Beauty (1959 film) on Wikipedia- Sleeping Beauty on Disney.com
- Template:Imdb title
- Beauty Sleeping Beauty at the Big Cartoon DataBase
References
- ↑ Heidi Anne Heiner, "The Annotated Sleeping Beauty"
- ↑ Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Children's and Household-Stories, "Briar Rose"
v - e - d  | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|