Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Film Distribution. The sixteenth feature in the Disney Animated Canon, it is based on Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale of the same name. The film was directed by Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, and Les Clark under the supervision of Clyde Geronimi. The story was adapted by Erdman Penner, Joe Rinaldi, Winston Hibler, Bill Peet, Ted Sears, Ralph Wright, and Milt Banta. The film features the voices of Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, Barbara Jo Allen, Taylor Holmes, and Bill Thompson.
The story centers on a young princess Aurora, who is cursed by the evil fairy Maleficent to die from pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel before the sun sets on the princess' sixteenth birthday. The three good fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, soften the curse so that Aurora falls into a deep sleep, from which she can only be awakened by a kiss from her true love, Prince Phillip.
Walt Disney had been considering making Sleeping Beauty since the late 1930s, but registered the production title in 1950. Work on the film took almost the entire decade of the 1950s and cost $6 million, making it the studio's most expensive animated feature at the time. Sleeping Beauty is notable for having one of the most unified and elaborate designs (which was developed by Eyvind Earle) among the Disney animated films. Its score was adapted from Pyotr Tchaikovsky's eponymous ballet by George Bruns. Sleeping Beauty was the last animated feature produced by Walt Disney to be based on a fairy tale; after his death, the studio returned to the genre with The Little Mermaid. It was also the first animated film to be photographed in the Super Technirama 70 widescreen process (only one more animated feature shot in this format was The Black Cauldron).
Sleeping Beauty was released to theaters on January 29, 1959, to mixed critical reception. It initially flopped at the box office, and was also noted as the film that caused Walt Disney to lose interest in the animation medium. Subsequent reissues of Sleeping Beauty proved to be more successful, however, and both critics and audiences have since praised it as an animated classic, particularly highlighting its artistic direction and musical score. A live-action reimagining of the film was released in 2014, followed by a sequel in 2019.
Rating[]
Sleeping Beauty is rated G by the MPAA, making it the sixteenth Disney animated film to deserve that rating, after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, Fun and Fancy Free, Melody Time, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp.
Credits[]
Gallery[]
United States[]
Trivia[]
- At one point in the film, Prince Phillip tells King Hubert that they are living in the fourteenth century, which means that the events of Sleeping Beauty take place somewhere between 1301 and 1400. This marks the first and only time that a Disney film specifically states the time period in which it takes place.
- The setting of the film, however, has been debated for a long time.
- Hidden Mickey: In the scene of the burning of spinning wheels, the Three Good Fairies eat biscuits in the shape of Mickey Mouse's head and ears.
- In the scene where the Three Good Fairies present Princess Aurora with a crown, her crying is not the voiceover of Mary Costa (Aurora's voice actress), but the reused sound of Dopey's sobbing from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- Likewise, the Queen's screaming (provided by Lucille La Verne) from the same film was reused in the scene where Maleficent in her dragon form is pierced by Phillip's sword.
- Second only to Dumbo (who does not speak at all), Aurora is the title Disney character with the least amount of actual dialogue throughout the entire film.
- In fact, Aurora, Phillip, and Queen Leah say nothing at all in the second half of the film, even after the sleeping spell is lifted from the kingdom.
- The melody that plays as Phillip and Aurora descend the stairs towards the end of the film is a branle couppé "Cassandre", which was written by Renaissance composer, Thoinot Arbeau and adapted as a march in honor of King Henry IV of France circa 1590; it was also used as a kind of a national anthem by French royalists. Tchaikovsky, who was fond of national anthems, incorporated it into his ballet score to represent the royal court of Florestan XXIV, the father of Sleeping Beauty.
- Because of Eyvind Earle's stylized approach, Sleeping Beauty is the only Disney film to have square trees.
- This is the last Disney Princess film to be released during Walt Disney's lifetime.
- The film's copyright was renewed on June 12, 1986.[1]
- 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 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).
- Richard Rich's 1994 animated film, The Swan Princess has several similarities to Sleeping Beauty.
- The Swan Princess features the evil enchanter Rothbart casting a powerful spell on Princess Odette, just as Maleficent curses Aurora.
- Odette, in particular, bears a physical resemblance to Aurora, as they both are depicted as tall young women with long wavy blonde hair and violet eyes.
- At the film's climax, Odette temporarily "dies" (just as Aurora falls into a deep sleep). Her beloved, Prince Derek, saves Odette by killing Rothbart, who transforms himself into the "Great Animal", and confessing his love to her (just as Maleficent turns into a dragon and Phillip kills her, followed by him saving Aurora with true love's kiss).
- Both films are based on Pyotr Tchaikovsky's ballets, The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, but unlike Sleeping Beauty, the creators of The Swan Princess decided not to adapt the ballet score; instead, they went with an original music by Lex de Azevedo.
- Sleeping Beauty is the first Disney animated classic to have the 2006 Walt Disney Pictures logo at the end of current home video releases.
- The film appears as one of the transition levels in Epic Mickey, found in Dark Beauty Castle.
- The scenes of Aurora pricking her finger on the spindle and the fight between Phillip and Maleficent are referenced in the Nightwish song, "FantasMic" with the lyrics "Maleficent's fury/The spindle so luring/Dragon fight".
- This is the first Disney Princess film to feature bows and arrows.
- This is the first Disney Princess film to briefly show blood.
Goofs[]
- King Hubert and Prince Phillip both remark that it's the fourteenth century. In another scene, fireworks are set off. Fireworks were not used for entertainment until the sixteenth century.
- While preparing a surprise birthday party for Aurora (Briar Rose) at the cottage, Flora tells Merryweather to lock the door so they can secretly use their magic to make gifts, but after Flora and Merryweather's color changing fight, when Aurora gets home, the door is suddenly unlocked as she easily enters inside.
- However, it could have been unlocked off-screen.
References in other media[]
- The film was referenced in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code as an allegory of the Grail quest.
- The sleeping spell was spoofed in Hanna-Barbera's The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo episode, "Scoobra Kadoobra", in which Scooby-Doo must save Daphne Blake and Princess Esmerelda from this spell cast by Maldor the Malevolent.
- Furthermore, in the episode from What's New Scooby-Doo?, Daphne wears an outfit similar to Aurora's.