Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Directed by Gary Trousdale
Follow the adventures of Belle, a bright young woman who finds herself in the castle of a prince who's been turned into a mysterious beast. With the help of the castle's enchanted staff, Belle soon learns the most important lesson of all -- that true beauty comes from within.
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9 films that influenced Beauty and the Beast
What critics say influenced Beauty and the Beast
A scene of Belle racing across a grassy hill overlooking her village while singing the reprise of "Belle" echoes a similar moment with Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.
Ashman understood the power of a heroine's monomythical musical announcement of yearning for adventure, patterned on The Wizard of Oz's "Over the Rainbow" ("Belle" also finds visual touchstones in The Sound of Music and Gone with the Wind).
Mary Poppins has often been suggested as Walt Disney's favorite amongst all the many films he produced in his 65 years of life; whether that's so, it certainly remains one of the best films ever produced by his company, indeed one of the best American films of the 1960s, just about the only film that can be idly compared to The Wizard of Oz as a masterpiece of family cinema, in terms of its technical ambition, emotional honesty, joyous energy, and glorious soundtrack (to me, Mary Poppins vies with only Pinocchio and Beauty and the Beast and perhaps The Little Mermaid as having the best songs of any Disney feature).
It’s the best of the first wave of Disney live-action features, and the most complete and satisfying musical of any kind that the studio produced until Beauty And The Beast came along.
This rousing number reaches such a flurry of musical counterpoint that it recalls sources as unlikely as "West Side Story," while the direction builds energetically from quiet beginnings to a formidable finale.
Ashman understood the power of a heroine's monomythical musical announcement of yearning for adventure, patterned on The Wizard of Oz's "Over the Rainbow" ("Belle" also finds visual touchstones in The Sound of Music and Gone with the Wind).
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The opening shots of the Beast's gothic castle recall Citizen Kane .
The new material includes a little extra dialogue (principally Belle reading to the Beast from "Romeo and Juliet") and one new song: "Human Again" (performed by Lumiere, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, and a host of magical housewares).
The Disney Renaissance was all about the standard set by songwriters Howard Ashman (lyricist) and Alan Menken (composer), who had taken Broadway by storm with Little Shop of Horrors.
As they enrich the palette of the narrative, they also invite comparison with some of the past glories of the American musical theater--from the opening numbers of Fiddler on the Roof and She Loves Me (the teeming "Belle" opener), the love soliloquies from South Pacific (the touching "Something There" soliloquies of Belle and the Beast), the "Shall We Dance?" waltz from The King and I (the soaring "Beauty and the Beast" waltz), to crowd-pleasing production numbers from Jerry Herman's Hello Dolly and Mame (the boisterous "Be Our Guest").
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While Disney had made some genuine classics before it, including The Little Mermaid just a few years earlier, there was something about Beauty and the Beast that stunned audiences.
The production numbers, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman (the duo who worked on The Little Mermaid), represent the best in Disney's considerable arsenal.
"Beauty and the Beast" was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise from an animation screenplay by Linda Woolverton; the songs are by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman, who also gave "The Little Mermaid" its engaging tunes.
Disney solidified the comeback of 2-D animation after the success of The Little Mermaid with Beauty & the Beast, a throwback to the fairytale reimaginings that defined the studio in its heyday.