Sleeping Beauty

In 1959, the Walt Disney Company produced its last fairy tale adaptation for 30 years. Based on the stories La Belle au bois dormant by Charles Perrault and Little Briar Rose by The Brothers Grimm, Sleeping Beauty was released on January 29, 1959. The film’s score was based on arrangements and adaptations from the Tchaikovsky ballet. It was also the first animated film to use the Super Technirama 70 widescreen process. This wouldn’t happen again for 54 years.

When King Stefan (Taylor Holmes) and Queen Leah (Verna Felton) welcome the birth of their daughter, Princess Aurora, the kingdom’s subjects gather to pay her homage. She is also betrothed to Prince Phillip (Bill Shirley), the son of King Hubert (Bill Thompson). The good fairies Flora (Felton), Fauna (Barbara Jo Allen), and Merryweather (Barbara Luddy) bless the child with the gifts of beauty and song, but the evil fairy Maleficent (Eleanor Audley) appears to curse the infant to death by pricking her finger on a spinning wheel before her sixteenth birthday is over. Merryweather weakens the curse, changing it into a deep sleep, only revered by true love’s kiss.

King Stefan orders all the spinning wheels to be burnt and the three fairies take Aurora into the forest until her sixteenth birthday passes.

The years pass and on her sixteenth birthday, Aurora meets Prince Phillip while out in the forest and fall in love without knowing who each other are. She rushes home and finds out she is the princess. But Maleficent’s raven has found them.

Aurora is taken back to the palace, but is lured into a secret passageway to fulfill the prophecy. The fairies place a charm to make everyone else fall asleep as well until the spell is broken. They overhear that Prince Phillip met Aurora in the forest and went back to see her, but was taken by Maleficent.

The fairies realize this, free him and help him get to Aurora. Maleficent transforms into a dragon, but Philip kills her, and enters the palace to awaken Aurora. He does so and the two live happily ever after.

Production for Sleeping Beauty began in 1951, with most of the work being centered on the art and music. This is quite evident as those two aspects are the best part of the film. The art is fantastic, with the backgrounds drawn to evoke a renaissance feel. This is quite different from most Disney films at the time, but this works rather well, considering the time period the film is set in. It makes it more authentic. The musical adaptations of Tchaikovsky’s ballet are also very well done.

The story is a bit different than the original fairy tale. One aspect of the original tale includes the prince’s mother being an ogress who means to eat their children and eventually cooks herself. This would have made an interesting movie, but would have been a terrible choice for Disney. The directors and Disney made the right choices of what to include and cut and ended up making a great adaptation.

On the other hand, the characterization for the film is lacking. While Prince Phillip is the first Disney Prince to actually do something, he’s a very bland character who doesn’t say anything for the final half of the film. The same goes for Aurora. Granted she does put on a brave face when she finds out her entire life is a lie, but she doesn’t really do much other than sing, look nice, and (of course) fall asleep. But where those two fail, Maleficent succeeds not only as a great villain for the film, but one of Disney’s best. She’s terrifying and irrational, considering since she doomed an infant to death for not being invited to a party. But she also has her sane and subtle moments that give her some depth.

Final Call: Great animation, music and story choices. The main characters may be boring and bland, but Maleficent is one of the best villains made by Disney. It passes the Edge of Satisfaction but doesn’t get too far in. #6.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Before I begin with this, I have to make note of how I said I was doing every movie put out by Disney and their subsidiaries. I retract this statement. I made my list and realized that’s well over 1,000 films. Too much for one series. So I’ll break it up into chunks. First it will be Disney Animated Canon, Pixar, Ghibli, and the hybrids. Significantly less.

Anyway, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released December 21, 1937. It was based on the Brothers Grimm tale and was the first full-length cel animated feature film. It made $8 million worldwide.

In a storybook prologue, Snow White is a princess living with her stepmother, she fears Snow White's beauty surpassing hers, and forces her to work as a scullery maid. She asks her Magic Mirror daily "who is the fairest one of all." For several years the mirror always answered that the Queen was. However, as the film opens, the Magic Mirror informs the Queen that Snow White is now the fairest in the land. The Queen orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the forest and kill her, demanding he return with Snow White's heart in a jeweled box. The huntsman encounters Snow White but decides not to harm her. He begs for her forgiveness, reveals the Queen wants her dead, and urges her to flee into the woods and never come back, bringing back a pig's heart instead. 

Running through the woods lost and frightened, the princess is befriended by woodland creatures who lead her to a cottage deep int he woods. Finding seven small chairs in the cottage's dining room, Snow White assumes the cottage is the untidy home of seven orphaned children. It soon becomes apparent that the cottage instead belongs to seven adult dwarfs: Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey, who work in a nearby mine. Returning home, they are alarmed to find their cottage clean and surmise that an intruder has invaded their home. The dwarfs find Snow White upstairs, asleep across three of their beds. Snow White awakes to find the Dwarfs at her bedside and introduces herself, and all of the dwarfs eventually welcome her into their home after they learn she can cook and clean. She keeps house for the dwarfs while they mine for jewels and at night sing, play music, and dance.

Meanwhile the Queen discovers that Snow White is still alive when the mirror again answers that Snow White is the fairest int he land. Using magic to disguise herself as an old hag, the Queen creates a poisoned apple, explaining that Snow White would collapse into a magical sleep if she were to take even a single bite of the apple. The sleep can only be cured by the power of "loves first kiss." the Queen reasons that this is no danger to her plans as the dwarfs would not be able to awaken Snow White and would think she was dead, resulting in her being buried alive. The Queen goes to the cottage while the dwarfs are away and tricks Snow White into biting the poisoned apple. As Snow White falls asleep, the Queen proclaims that she will be the fairest of the land. The dwarfs are alerted by the woodland animals who recognize the queen, chase her off a cliff and trap her. She tries to roll a boulder over them, but before she can do so, lightning strikes the cliff, causing her to fall to her death.

The dwarfs return to their cottage and find Snow White seemingly dead, being kept in a deathlike slumber by the poison. Unwilling to bury her out of sight in the ground, they instead place her in a glass coffin trimmed with gold in a clearing in the forest. Together with the woodland creatures, they keep watch over her in an "eternal vigil." After some time, a prince who had previously met and fallen in love with Snow White, learns of her eternal sleep and visits her coffin. Saddened by her apparent death, he kisses her, which breaks the spell and awakens her. The dwarfs and animals all rejoice as the Prince takes Snow White to his castle, which glows in her presence.

It’s honestly a good movie, especially for its time. While the visuals aren’t anything to write home about today, they were the best looking in 1937, especially since this was the first animated feature ever. The soundtrack is pretty good too. Granted, Adriana Caselotti’s singing might be a little ear shattering, but they’re still good songs. With well-remembered songs such as I’m Wishing, Whistle While You Work, Heigh Ho and Someday my Prince Will Come, it’s a solid soundtrack. In regards to characterization, it’s the dwarfs that save it. Especially Grumpy, who ends up softening towards the end of the film, because Character Development is always a good thing. Other than that, the evil queen is evil, the prince shows up at the beginning and end and Snow White… exists.

The story is good too, but then, if anyone doesn’t know the Disney version of Snow White, then they don’t deserve to have internet. I haven’t read the original fairy tale, but I do know the Queen is made to dance in red hot shoes. Makes me want to read it. Anyway, the one problem: Why do they encase her in a glass coffin instead of burying her? I know it’s because they don’t want to bury her because they won’t see her anymore, but still you ever see a corpse after a few days?

Final Call: Fun film with great music, a good story and lively secondary characters. It obviously starts off as #1 and breaks the Edge of Enjoyment