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Sleeping Beauty (1959 film)
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Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 animated feature produced by Walt Disney and originally released to theatres on January 29, 1959, by Buena Vista Distribution. The sixteenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, it was the last fairy tale produced by Walt Disney (after his death, the studio returned to the genre with 1989's The Little Mermaid).
The film was directed by Les Clark, Eric Larson, and Wolfgang Reitherman, under the supervision of Clyde Geronimi. The film was based on the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault, with additional story work by Joe Rinaldi, Winston Hibler, Bill Peet, Ted Sears, Ralph Wright, and Milt Banta.
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Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 animated feature produced by Walt Disney and originally released to theatres on January 29, 1959, by Buena Vista Distribution. The sixteenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, it was the last fairy tale produced by Walt Disney (after his death, the studio returned to the genre with 1989's The Little Mermaid).
The film was directed by Les Clark, Eric Larson, and Wolfgang Reitherman, under the supervision of Clyde Geronimi. The film was based on the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault, with additional story work by Joe Rinaldi, Winston Hibler, Bill Peet, Ted Sears, Ralph Wright, and Milt Banta. The film's musical score and songs, featuring the work of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, are inspired from the 1890 Sleeping Beauty ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Sleeping Beauty was the first animated feature to be photographed in the Technirama widescreen process. The film was presented in Super Technirama 70 and 6-channel stereophonic sound in first-run engagements. Only one other animated film, Disney's The Black Cauldron, was shot in Technirama.
Princess Aurora, the film's titular character, appears for fewer than eighteen minutes in the film (excluding the time she appears as an infant at the beginning).
Plot synopsis
Set in the 14th century, the newborn Princess Aurora is named after the Roman goddess of the dawn because she fills the lives of her mother and father, King Stefan and Queen Leah, with sunshine. While still an infant, she is betrothed to the also-young Prince Phillip, son of King Hubert. At her christening, the good fairies Flora (dressed in red/pink), Fauna (in green), and Merryweather (in blue) arrive to bless her. Flora gives her the gift of beauty while Fauna gives her the gift of song. But before Merryweather could give her blessing, Maleficent appears on the scene, expressing disappointment in not being invited to Aurora's christening ceremony and curses the princess to die when she touches a spinning wheel's spindle before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday. Fortunately, Merryweather's blessing weakens the curse so that instead of death, Aurora, would fall into a deep sleep until she is awakened by true love's kiss. Though King Stefan decreed all spinning wheels in the kingdom burned, the three good fairies know Maleficent couldn't be stopped that easily and sneak Aurora away with them to a woodland cottage until her sixteen birthday lapses, passing themselves off as her aunts and swearing off magic to conceal themselves.
Years later, Aurora, renamed Briar-Rose, had grown into a gorgeous young woman with the blessings that Flora and Fauna bestowed to her. She does not care about her looks despite being very beautiful but she awaits love, as she is a very romantic girl. By that time, Maleficent is vexed at her minions' incompetence and sends her raven Diablo to look for Aurora. On the day of her sixteenth birthday, the fairies attempt to make Rose a gown and a cake. When their attempts end in disaster they decide to use their wands, resulting with an argument by Flora and Merryweather over the color of the gown that catches Diablo's attention. Meanwhile, Aurora gathers berries while singing to her animal friends; this attracts the attention of Prince Phillip, now a handsome young man, as he is out riding his horse in the woods. When they meet, they instantly fall in love. Realizing that she has to return home, Aurora flees from Phillip without ever learning his name. Despite promising to meet him again, the fairies reveal the truth of her birth to her and take her to her parents and her betrothed's family.
Unfortunately, Maleficent uses her magic to lure Aurora away from her boudoir up a vacant room of the castle, where a spinning wheel awaits her. Fascinated by the wheel with Maleficent's will enforcing it, Aurora touches the spindle, pricking her finger and completing the curse. The good fairies place Aurora on a bed with a red rose in her hand, and place all in the kingdom in a deep sleep until the spell is broken as King Hubert tries to tell Stefan of his son being in love with a peasant-girl. At that time, Prince Phillip arrives at the cottage, but is captured, bound and gagged by Maleficent's minions and taken to her castle, "The Forbidden Mountain", to prevent him from kissing Aurora until he is an old man. However, the fairies sneak into Maleficent's stronghold and free the prince. Armed with the magical Sword of Truth and The Shield of Virtue, Phillip braves all obstacles to reach Stefan's castle prior to battling Maleficent when the sorceress turns herself into a gigantic Dark Fire-Breathing Dragon. The sword, blessed by the fairies' magic, is plunged into the dragon's heart, causing the evil sorceress to fall to her death from a cliff. Phillip climbs to Aurora's chamber, and removes the curse with a kiss. As the film ends, the prince and princess both happily learn that their betrothed and their beloved are one and the same. They arrive at the ballroom, where Aurora is happily re-united with her parents, and she an Prince Phillip dance a waltz. However, they are unaware of the fact that Merryweather and Flora are still in disagreement of the color of her dress and that the color changes from blue to pink. (but before the story ends the gown appears in pink)
Production
Overview and art direction
Sleeping Beauty 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, partially based on Tchaikovsky's ballet of the same name, was recorded in 1957. The film holds a notable position in Disney animation as the last Disney feature to use hand-inked cels. Beginning with the next feature, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Disney would move to the use of xerography to transfer animators' drawings from paper to celluloid. Its art, which Walt Disney wanted to look like a living illustration and which was inspired by medieval art, was not in the typical Disney style. Because the Disney studio had already made two features based on fairy tales, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella, Walt Disney wanted this film to stand out from its predecessors by choosing a different visual style. The movie 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 movie before.
While Disney's regular production designer, Ken Anderson was in charge of the film's overall look, Disney artist Eyvind Earle was made the film's color stylist and chief background designer, and Disney gave him a significant amount of freedom in designing the settings and selecting colors for the film. Earle also painted the majority of the backgrounds himself. 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 Sleeping Beauty exercised some influence over the style of their characters and settings.
It was also the first time the studio experimented with the Xerox process. Woolie Reitherman used it on the dragon as a way to enlarge and reduce its size, but due to the primitive equipment available in this early test, the Xerox lines were then replaced with traditional ink and paint.
Of interesting note is the fact that Chuck Jones, who gained fame as an animation director with Warner Bros. Animation, did some work on the film. He worked with the studio during a brief period when Warner Bros. closed its Animation department, anticipating that 3-D film would replace animation as a box office draw. When the studio was re-opened following the failure of 3-D, Jones ended his work at Disney and returned to Warner Bros. His work on the film, which he spent four months on, remained uncredited. Ironically, during his early years at WB, Jones was a heavy user of Disney-style animation.
Characters and story development
The name of the beautiful Sleeping Beauty is "Princess Aurora" (Latin for "dawn"), in this film, as it was in the original Tchaikovsky ballet; this name occurred in Perrault's version, not as the princess's name, but as her daughter's. In hiding, she is called Briar Rose, the name of the princess in the Brothers Grimm variant. The prince was given the only princely name familiar to Americans in the 1950s: "Prince Phillip", named after Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The dark fairy was aptly named Maleficent (which means "Evil-doer"). Sleeping Beauty's mother is never named in the film itself or the character reference sheets, always referred to as "the queen," whereas both her father and that of the prince are given names that are used several times, both in dialogue and narration.
Walt Disney had suggested that all three good fairies should look alike, but veteran animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston objected, saying that three identical fairies would not be exciting. Additionally, the idea originally included seven fairies instead of three, as there are seven fairies in the story's main reference, Perrault's version. In determining Maleficent's design, standard depictions of witches and hags were dismissed as animator Marc Davis opted for a more elegant look centered around the appearance of flames, ultimately crowning the villain with "the horns of the devil." In the event the individual character of the three good fairies and the elegant villain proved to be among the films strongest points.
Several story points for this film came from discarded ideas for Disney's previous fairy tale involving a sleeping heroine: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They include Maleficent's capture of the Prince, as well as her mocking him 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. Also discarded from Snow White but used in this film were the ideas of the dance with the makeshift prince, and the fantasy sequence of the prince and princess dancing in the clouds, which was also considered but dropped from Cinderella.
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 were Spring Byington, Frances Bavier, and Helene Stanley.
Helene Stanley was the live action reference for Princess Aurora. The only known surviving footage of Stanley as Aurora's live-action reference is a clip from the television program Disneyland, which consists of the artists sketching her dancing with the woodland animals. It was not the first or last time Stanley worked for Disney; she also provided live-action references for Cinderella and Anita from One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and she also portrayed Polly Crockett for the TV series Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. An episode of The Mickey Mouse Club television series features Stanley re-enacting scenes from the Sleeping Beauty for the Mousketeers to watch (a clip from this episode is included as a special feature on the Cinderella Platinum Edition DVD).
All the live actors' performances were screened for the animators' reference as Walt Disney insisted that much of Sleeping Beauty's character animation be as close to live-action as possible.
Release and later history
Theatrical release
Disney's distribution arm, Buena Vista Distribution, originally released Sleeping Beauty 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, Sleeping Beauty was paired with the short musical/documentary film Grand Canyon which won an Academy Award.
During its original release, Sleeping Beauty returned only half the invested sum of $6,000,000, nearly bankrupting the Disney studio. It was mainly criticized as being slowly paced and having little character development. Since then, the film has gained a following and is today hailed as one of the best animated features ever made, thanks to its stylized designs by painter Eyvind Earle who also was the art director for the movie, its lush music score and its large-format widescreen and stereophonic sound presentation.
The film was re-released theatrically in 1970, 1979 (in 70mm 6 channel stereo, as well as in 35 mm stereo and mono),1986, 1993, and will have a limited release in 2008. When adjusted for ticket price inflation, the domestic total gross comes out to $478.22 million, placing it in the top 30 of adjusted films.
Home video release
Sleeping Beauty was released on both VHS and Laserdisc in 1986 in the Classics collection, becoming the first Disney Classics video to be digitally processed in Hi-Fi stereo. The film underwent a digital restoration in 1997, and that version was released to both VHS and Laserdisc again as part of the Masterpiece Collection. In 2003, the restored Sleeping Beauty was released to DVD in a 2-disc "Special Edition" which included both a widescreen version (formatted at 2.35:1) and a pan and scan version as well.
A 50th Anniversary Platinum Edition release of Sleeping Beauty, as a 2-disc DVD & Blu-ray Disc, was released on October 7, 2008 in the US, making Sleeping Beauty the first entry in the Platinum Edition line to be released in high definition video. This release is based upon a new 2007 restoration of Sleeping Beauty from the original Technicolor negatives (intrapositives several generations removed from the original negative were used for other home video releases). The new restoration features the film in its full negative aspect ratio of 2.55:1, wider than both the prints shown at the film's original limited Technirama engagements in 2.20:1 and the CinemaScope-compatible reduction prints for general release at 2.35:1. The Blu-ray set features BD-Live, an online feature, and the extras include a virtual castle and multi-player games. The Blu-ray release also include a standard-definition DVD of the film in addition to the two Blu-ray discs. The DVD was released on October 27, 2008 in the UK. The Blu-ray release is the first ever release on the Blu-ray format of any Disney feature produced by Walt Disney himself.
Other appearances
Aurora is one of the seven Princesses of Heart in the popular Square Enix game Kingdom Hearts (although her appearances are brief), and Maleficent is a villain in all three Kingdom Hearts games, and as a brief ally at the third game's climax. The good fairies appear in Kingdom Hearts II, giving Sora new clothes. The upcoming game for the PSP, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, will feature a world based on the movie, Enchanted Dominion. She is also a playable character in the game Disney Princess.
Princess Aurora, Prince Phillip, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather were featured as guests in Disney's House of Mouse and Maleficent was one of the villains in Mickey's House of Villains.
Maleficent's goons appear in the Maroon Cartoon studio lot in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
The first all-new story featuring the characters from the movie appeared in Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams, the first volume of collection of the Disney Princesses. It was released on September 4, 2007.
Various characters from the film also appear in the board game of the same name.
Sleeping Beauty release history
- January 29, 1959 (original release)
- May 18, 1966 (New Orleans premiere)
- June 10, 1970
- September 28, 1979
- March 7, 1986
- Spring 1993
- September 16, 1997
- September 9, 2003 (Special Edition DVD)
- October 7, 2008 (Platinum Edition DVD and Platinum Edition Blu-ray)
Worldwide release dates
- Brazil: February 6, 1959
- Argentina: July 9, 1959
- U.K.: July 29, 1959
- Australia: September 10, 1959
- West Germany: October 30, 1959
- Italy: December 1, 1959
- Turkey: December 9, 1959
- France: December 16, 1959
- Finland: December 18, 1959
- Sweden: December 19, 1959
- Mexico: December 24, 1959
- Denmark: December 26, 1959
- Norway: December 26, 1959
- Austria: January 15, 1960
- Hong Kong: May 26, 1960
- Japan: July 23, 1960
- Spain: October 3, 1960
- Portugal: April 2, 1961
- Poland: August 18, 1962
- Yugoslavia: June 13, 1964
- Peru: October 15, 1966
- East Germany: October 10, 1969
- Zaire: November 14, 1977 (Kinshasa)
- Estonia: August 12, 1997
- Kuwait: May 24, 1999
- Brunei: February 12, 2005
- Russia: November 16, 2008
Characters
- Flora, Merryweather, and Fauna (The Three Good Fairies), voiced by Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, and Barbara Jo Allen respectively.
- Maleficent, voiced by Eleanor Audley.
- Princess Aurora/Briar Rose, voiced by Mary Costa.
- Prince Phillip, voiced by Bill Shirley.
- King Stefan, voiced by Taylor Holmes.
- King Hubert, voiced by Bill Thompson.
- The Narrator, voiced by Marvin Miller.
- Maleficent's Goons, voiced by Candy Candido, Pinto Colvig, and Bob Amsberry.
- The Owl, voiced by Dallas McKennon.
Characters who are unvoiced include the lackey and Maleficent's raven, Diablo. The actress who voiced Queen Leah is unknown.
The Artists
- Screen Story by Erdman Penner
- Story Adapted by Joe Rinaldi, Winston Hibler, Bill Peet, Ted Sears, Ralph Wright, Milt Banta
- With the Voice Talents of Mary Costa, Eleanor Audley, Barbara Luddy, Taylor Holmes, Bill Shirley, Verna Felton, Barbara Jo Allen, Bill Thompson, Candy Candido, Pinto Colvig, Bob Amsberry, Dallas McKennon, Marvin Miller
- Character Design: Tom Oreb
- Supervising Animators: Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, John Lounsbery
- Animators: Hal King, Blaine Gibson, Ken Hultgren, George Nicholas, Henry Tanous, Hal Ambro, John Sibley, Harvey Toombs, Robert Youngquist, John Kennedy, Don Lusk, Bob Carlson, Fred Kopietz, Eric Cleworth, Ken O'Brien
- Special Animation Effects: Dan MacManus, Jack Boyd, Joshua Meador, Jack Buckley
- Production Designers: Don DaGradi, Ken Anderson
- Layout: McLaren Stewart, Don Griffith, Basil Davidovich, Joe Hale, Jack Huber, Tom Codrick, Erno Nordli, Victor Haboush, Homer Jonas, Ray Aragon
- Background Design: Eyvind Earle
- Backgrounds: Frank Armitage, Al Dempster, Bill Layne, Dick Anthony, Richard H. Thomas, Thelma Witmer, Walt Peregoy, Ralph Hulett, Fil Mottola, Anthony Rizzo
- Production Manager: Ken Peterson
- Supervising Sound Editor: Robert O. Cook
- Film Editors: Roy M. Brewer, Jr., Donald Halliday
- Music Editor: Evelyn Kennedy
- Special Processes: Ub Iwerks, Eustace Lycett
- Music Supervised, Arranged and Conducted by George Bruns
- Music Adapted from Score by Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky
- Original Songs by George Bruns, Tom Adair, Winston Hibler, Ted Sears, Erdman Penner, Sammy Fain, Jack Lawrence
- Choral Arrangements by John Rarig
- Supervising Director: Clyde Geronimi
- Sequence Directors: Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Les Clark
- Read Charles Perrault's telling of the "Sleeping Beauty" in "Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passe"
Awards and nominations
Nominated
- Grammy Awards
- Best Soundtrack Album, Original Cast - Motion Picture or Television
Media and merchandise
Theme parks
Sleeping Beauty was made while Walt Disney was building Disneyland (hence the four year production time). To help promote the film, Imagineers named the park's icon "Sleeping Beauty Castle" (it was originally to be Snow White's).
An indoor walk-through exhibit was added to the empty castle interior in 1957, where guests could walk-through the castle, up and over the castle entrance, viewing "Story Moment" dioramas of scenes from the film, which were improved with animated figurines in 1977. It closed shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, supposedly because the dark, unmonitored corridors were a risk. After being closed for seven years, the exhibit space underwent extensive refurbishment to restore the original 1957 displays, and reopened to guests on November 27, 2008. Accommodations were also made on the ground floor with a "virtual" version for disabled guests unable to navigate stairs.
Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant at Disneyland Paris is a variant of Sleeping Beauty Castle. The version found at Disneyland Paris is much more reminiscent of the film's artistic direction.
Hong Kong Disneyland opened in 2005, also with a Sleeping Beauty Castle, nearly replicating Disneyland's original design.
Princess Aurora (and, to a lesser extent, Prince Phillip, the three good fairies, and Maleficent) makes regular appearances in the parks and parades.
In Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland Paris, a sleeping dragon, designed to look like Maleficent's dragon form, is found in the lower level dungeon.
Soundtrack listing
- "Main Title"/"Once Upon a Dream"/"Prologue"
- "Hail to the Princess Aurora"
- "The Gifts of Beauty and Song"/"Maleficent Appears"/"True Love Conquers All"
- "The Burning of the Spinning Wheels"/"The Fairies' Plan"
- "Maleficent's Frustration"
- "A Cottage in the Woods"
- "Do You Hear That?"/"I Wonder"
- "An Unusual Prince"/"Once Upon a Dream"
- "Magical House Cleaning"/"Blue or Pink"
- "A Secret Revealed"
- "Skumps (Drinking Song)"/"The Royal Argument"
- "Prince Phillip Arrives"/"How to Tell Stefan"
- "Aurora's Return"/"Maleficent's Evil Spell"
- "Poor Aurora"/"Sleeping Beauty"
- "Forbidden Mountain"
- "A Fairy Tale Come True"
- "Battle with the Forces of Evil"
- "Awakening"
- "Finale"
The Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic album includes "Once Upon a Dream" on the green disc, and "I Wonder" on the purple disc. Additionally, Disney's Greatest Hitsincludes "Once Upon a Dream" on the blue disc.
No Secrets performed a cover version of "Once Upon A Dream" on the album Disneymania 2, which appears as a music video on the 2003 DVD. More recently, Emily Osment sang a remake of "Once Upon A Dream", released on the Disney Channel on September 12, 2008, and included on the Platinum Edition DVD and Blu-ray.
External links
in the Big Cartoon DataBase
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