Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)

Beauty and the Beast
Theatrical poster by John Alvin[1]
Directed by	Gary Trousdale Kirk Wise
Produced by	Don Hahn Executive: Howard Ashman
Written by	Linda Woolverton Story: Roger Allers Brenda Chapman Christopher Sanders Burny Mattinson Kevin Harkey Brian Pimental Bruce Woodside Joe Ranft Tom Ellery Kelly Ashbury Robert Lence
Narrated by	David Ogden Stiers
Starring	Robby Benson Paige O'Hara Richard White Jerry Orbach Angela Lansbury David Ogden Stiers Bradley Michael Pierce Jesse Corti Rex Everhart
Music by	Alan Menken Howard Ashman
Editing by	John Carnochan
Studio	Walt Disney Feature Animation Silver Screen Partners IV
Distributed by	Walt Disney Pictures Buena Vista Distribution
Release date(s)	November 22, 1991 (1991-11-22)
Running time	84 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$25 million
Gross revenue	$377,350,553
Followed by	Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas

Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, released to theaters on November 23, 1991 by Walt Disney Pictures. The story is based on the fairy tale La Belle et la Bête by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, who was uncredited in the English version of the film but credited in the French version as writer of the novel^[2] and also uses some ideas derived from the 1946 French film.^[3] It centers around a prince who is transformed into a Beast and the beautiful young woman whom he imprisons in his castle.

This is the thirtieth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and the third animated feature released during a period known as the "Disney Renaissance", which began in 1989 with The Little Mermaid and ended in 1999 with Tarzan. It is widely considered one of Disney's greatest animated films, and is the first of only two animated films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (the other being Disney·Pixar's 2009 film Up). Many animated films following its release have been influenced by its blending of traditional animation and computer generated imagery.

The film was adapted to an animation screenplay by Linda Woolverton, directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, and produced by Don Hahn. The music of the film was composed by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, both of whom had written the music and songs for Disney's The Little Mermaid. Upon its release, Beauty and the Beast was a significant commercial and critical success, earning $403 million in box office earnings throughout the world, in addition to three Golden Globe Awards - including Best Picture – Musical or Comedy - and two Academy Awards.

A direct-to-video midquel, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, was released in 1997. It was quickly followed by another midquel, Belle's Magical World, which was released in 1998. A theatrical stage production and a television spin-off series, Sing Me a Story with Belle, were also produced. An IMAX Special Edition version of the original film was released in 2002, with a new five-minute musical sequence included.

Plot

In the film's prologue, an enchantress disguised as an old beggar woman offers a young prince a rose in exchange for a night's shelter. When he turns her away, she transforms him into an ugly Beast and turns his servants into furniture and other household items. She gives him a magic mirror that will enable him to view faraway events, and also gives him the rose, which will bloom until his 21st birthday. He must love and be loved in return before all the rose's petals have fallen off, or he will remain a Beast forever.

Years later, a beautiful but unusual young woman named Belle lives in a nearby village with her father Maurice, who is an inventor. Belle loves reading and yearns for a life beyond the village. She is also the object of unwanted attention from the arrogant local hero, Gaston.

Maurice's latest invention is a wood-chopping machine. When he rides off to display the machine at a fair, he loses his way in the woods and stumbles upon the Beast's castle, where he meets the transformed servants Lumiere, Mrs. Potts and her son Chip, and Cogsworth. The Beast imprisons Maurice, but Belle is led back to the castle by Maurice's horse and offers to take her father's place. When the Beast agrees to this and sends him home, Maurice tells Gaston and the other villagers what happened, but they think he has lost his mind, so he goes to rescue her alone.

Meanwhile, Belle refuses the Beast's invitation to dinner, and the Beast orders his servants not to let her eat, but Lumiere serves her dinner anyway and Cogsworth gives her a tour of the castle. When she finds the rose in a forbidden area, the Beast angrily chases her away.

Frightened, Belle tries to escape, but she and her horse are attacked by wolves. After the Beast rescues her, she nurses his wounds, he gives her the castle library as a gift, and they become friends. Later, they have an elegant dinner and a romantic ballroom dance. When he lets her use the magic mirror, she sees her father dying in the woods and, with only hours left before the rose wilts, the Beast allows her to leave, giving her the mirror to remember him by. This horrifies the servants, who fear they will never be human again. As he watches her leave, the Beast admits to Cogsworth that he loves Belle.

Belle finds Maurice and takes him home, but Gaston arrives with a lynch mob. Unless she agrees to marry Gaston, the manager of the local madhouse will lock her father up. Belle proves Maurice sane by showing them the Beast with the magic mirror, but Gaston arouses the mob's anger against the Beast and leads them to the castle to kill him. He locks Belle and Maurice in a basement, but Chip, who hid himself in Belle's baggage, chops the basement door apart with Maurice's machine.

While the servants successfully drive the mob out of the castle, Gaston finds the Beast and attacks him. The Beast is initially too depressed to fight back, but regains his will when he sees Belle arriving at the castle. After winning a heated battle, the Beast spares Gaston's life and climbs up to a balcony where Belle is waiting. Gaston follows the Beast and stabs him from behind, but loses his footing and falls to his death.

As the Beast dies from his injuries, Belle whispers that she loves him, breaking the spell just before the last petal drops from the rose. The Beast comes back to life, and he and the servants become human again. The last scene shows Belle and the prince dancing in the ballroom as her father and the servants happily watch them.

Cast and crew

Cast and characters

• Paige O'Hara as Belle - A bookish young woman who falls in love with the Beast and finds the kind-hearted human inside him. In their effort to enhance the character from the original story, the filmmakers felt that Belle should be "unaware" of her own beauty and made her "a little eccentric".^[4] Wise recalls casting O'Hara because of a "unique tone" she had, "a little bit of Judy Garland".^[5]
• Robby Benson as The Beast - A cold-hearted prince transformed into a beast as punishment for his selfishness, but later warms, with the help of Belle, and ends up being transformed back into a handsome prince as a reward. Chris Sanders, one of the film's storyboard artists, drafted the designs for the Beast and came up with designs based on birds, insects and fish before coming up with something close to the final design.^[6] Glen Keane, supervising animator for the Beast, refined the design by going to the zoo and studying the animals on which the Beast was based.^[6] Benson commented, "There's a rage and torment in this character I've never been asked to use before."^[7] The filmmakers commented that "everybody was big fee-fi-fo-fum and gravelly" while Benson's voice had the "big voice and the warm, accessible side" and that "you could hear the prince beneath the fur".^[6]
• Richard White as Gaston - A highly egotistical hunter who vies for Belle's hand in marriage and is determined not to let anyone else win her heart, even if it means killing her true love. Hahn commented that they had "big line-ups of good-looking men with deep voices" during the casting auditions, but that Richard White had a "big voice" that "rattled the room".^[6] Gaston's supervising animator, Andreas Deja, was pressed by Jeffrey Katzenberg to make Gaston handsome in contrast to the traditional appearance of a Disney villain, an assignment he found difficult at first.^[8]
• Jerry Orbach as Lumière - The kind-hearted but rebellious maître d' of the Beast's castle, he has been transformed into a candelabra. He has a habit of disobeying his master's strict rules, sometimes causing tension between them, but the Beast often turns to him for advice, and he is arguably the Beast's closest friend after Belle. Depicted as a bit of a ladies' man, as he is frequently seen with Fifi the Featherduster and immediately takes to Belle.
• Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts - The head of the castle kitchens, turned into a teapot, who takes a motherly attitude toward Belle. The filmmakers went through several names for Mrs. Potts, such as "Mrs. Chamomile", before Ashman suggested the use of simple and concise names for the household objects.^[6]
• David Ogden Stiers as Cogsworth - The castle majordomo and Lumiere's best friend, transformed into a clock. While he is as good-natured as Lumiere, he is extremely loyal to the Beast so as to save himself and anyone else any trouble, often leading to friction between himself and Lumiere. Stiers also provided the voice of The Narrator.
• Bradley Michael Pierce as Chip - A teacup and Mrs. Potts' son. Originally intended to have only one line, the filmmakers were impressed with Pierce's performance and expanded the character's role significantly, eschewing a mute Music Box character.^[6]
• Jesse Corti as LeFou - Gaston's bumbling and often mistreated sidekick.
• Rex Everhart as Maurice - Belle's inventor father.
• Hal Smith as Philippe - Belle's horse.
• Jo Anne Worley as Wardrobe - The castle's authority over fashion, and a former opera singer, turned into a wardrobe. The character of Wardrobe was introduced by visual development person Sue C. Nichols to the then entirely male cast of servants, and was originally a more integral character named "Madame Armoire". Wardrobe is known as "Madame de la Grande Bouche" in the stage adaptation of the film.
• Kimmy Robertson as the Featherduster - A featherduster and Lumiere's lover. She is named "Babette" in the stage adaptation of the film, and "Fifi" in Belle's Magical World.
• Frank Welker as Footstool, aka Sultan - the castle's pet dog turned into a footstool, whom Chip seems to own as his pet.
• Mary Kay Bergman as Bimbette - A village girl with her eyes on Gaston.
• Kath Soucie as Bimbette - Another village girl who fancies Gaston.
• Tony Jay as Monsieur D'Arque - The owner of the Maison de Lune. Gaston bribes him to help him in his plan to blackmail Belle.

In the original Chinese versions of Beauty and the Beast, the voice of the Beast is provided by Jackie Chan. He provided both the speaking and singing voices in these versions. In September 2007, CCTV6, a Chinese film channel, aired a newly dubbed version of Beauty and the Beast in which Beast's voice is performed by 王凯, Wang Kai. Together with this version, a translated version of the pop version of the "Beauty and the Beast" theme song was released, which was translated by Chan Siu Kei and sung by Nicholas Tse Ting-Fung and Meilin.^[9] This translated theme song was released separately before the film aired and is not included in the new Chinese version, which uses another translation of lyrics, translated by Han Wen (翰文).

Two Spanish versions exist, one in Mexican Spanish for the Latin American market, the other in Castilian Spanish for the European market. In the Mexican version, the voice of LeFou is provided by the same actor who played the role in English, Venezuelan-American voice actor Jesse Corti.^[10]

For the French version, the theme song is performed by Charles Aznavour. In the Swedish version, the theme song is provided by Tommy Körberg and Sofia Källgren, who also provide the voices of Beast and Belle, respectively, in the film.

Production

Early versions

Walt Disney sought out other stories to turn into feature films after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Beauty and the Beast was among the stories he considered.^[4][11] Attempts to develop the Beauty and the Beast story into a film were made in the 1930s and 1950s, but were ultimately given up because it "proved to be a challenge" for the story team.^[4] Peter M. Nichols states Disney may later have been discouraged by Jean Cocteau having already done his version.^[12]

Decades later, after the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988, the Disney studio resurrected Beauty and the Beast as a project for the satellite animation studio it'd set up in London, England to work on Roger Rabbit.^[13] Richard Williams, who had directed the animated portions of Roger Rabbit, was approached to direct, but declined in favor of continuing work on his long-gestating project The Thief and the Cobbler.^[13] In his place, Williams recommended his colleague, English animation director Richard Purdum, and work began under producer Don Hahn on a non-musical version of Beauty and the Beast set in Victorian France.^[13] At the behest of Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Beauty and the Beast became the first Disney animated film to use a screenwriter. This was an unusual production move for an animated film, which are traditionally developed on storyboards rather than in scripted form.^[14] Linda Woolverton wrote the original draft of the story before story boarding began, and worked with the story team to retool and develop the film.

Script rewrite and musicalization

Upon seeing the initial storyboard reels in 1989, Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg ordered that the film be scrapped and started over from scratch.^[13] A few months after starting anew, Purdam resigned as director, and was replaced by first-time feature directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, directors of the animated sections of the short film Cranium Command for a Disney EPCOT theme park attraction.^[13] In addition, Katzenberg asked songwriters Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who'd written the song score for Disney's recent success The Little Mermaid, to turn Beauty and the Beast into a Broadway-style musical film in the same vein as Mermaid. Ashman, who at the time had learned he was dying of AIDS, had been working with Disney on a pet project of his, Aladdin, and only reluctantly agreed to join the struggling production team.^[13]

To accommodate Ashman's failing health, pre-production of Beauty and the Beast was moved from London to the Residence Inn in Fishkill, New York, close to Ashman's New York City home.^[13] Here, Ashman and Menken joined Wise, Trousdale, Hahn, and Woolverton in retooling the film's script.^[4][14] Since the original story had only two major characters, the filmmakers enhanced them, added new characters in the form of enchanted household items who "add warmth and comedy to a gloomy story" and guide the audience through the film, and added a "real villain" in the form of Gaston.^[4] These ideas were somewhat similar to elements of the 1946 French film version of Beauty and the Beast, which introduced the character of Avenant, an oafish suitor somewhat similar to Gaston^[15] as well as inanimate objects coming to life in the Beast's castle.^[16] The animated objects were, however, given distinct personalities in the Disney version. By early 1990, Katzenberg had approved the revised script, and storyboarding began again.^[4][14] The production flew story artists back and forth between California and New York for storyboard approvals from Ashman, though the team was not told the reason why.^[4]

The famous "Beauty and the Beast" ballroom dance sequence. Using Disney's CAPS software, the traditionally animated characters of Belle and the Beast are combined with a rendered computer-generated background to give the illusion of a dollying film camera.

Animation

Production of Beauty and the Beast had to be completed on a compressed timeline of two years rather than four because of the loss of production time spent developing the earlier Purdam version of the film.^[6] Most of the production was done at the main Feature Animation studio, housed in the Air Way facility in Glendale, California. A smaller team at the Disney-MGM Studios theme park in Lake Buena Vista, Florida assisted the California team on several scenes, particularly the "Be Our Guest" number.^[4]

Beauty and the Beast was the second film produced using CAPS (Computer Animation Production System), a digital scanning, ink, paint, and compositing system of software and hardware developed for Disney by Pixar.^[4][13] The software allowed a wider range of colors, as well as soft shading and colored line effects for the characters, techniques lost when the Disney studio abandoned hand inking for xerography in the late 1950s.^[6] CAPS also allowed the production crew to simulate multiplane effects: placing characters and/or backgrounds on separate layers and moving them towards/away from the camera on the Z-axis to give the illusion of depth.

In addition, CAPS allowed easier combination of hand-drawn art with computer-generated imagery, which before had to be plotted to animation cels and painted traditionally.^[4][17] The latter technique was put to significant use during the "Beauty and the Beast" waltz sequence, in which Belle and Beast dance through a computer-generated ballroom as the camera dollies around them in simulated 3D space.^[4][6] The filmmakers had originally decided against the use of computers in favor of traditional animation, but later, when the technology had improved, decided it could be used for the one scene in the ballroom.^[12] The success of the ballroom sequence helped convince studio executives to further invest in computer animation.^[18]

Music

Ashman and Menken wrote the Beauty song score during the pre-production process in Fishkill, the opening operetta-styled "Belle" being their first composition for the film.^[4] Other songs included "Be Our Guest", sung to Maurice by the objects when he becomes the first visitor to the castle in a decade, "Gaston", a solo for the swaggering villain, "Human Again", a song describing Belle and Beast's growing love from the objects' perspective, the love ballad "Beauty and the Beast", and the climatic "The Mob Song".

As story and song development came to a close, full production began in Burbank while voice and song recording began in New York City.^[4] The Beauty songs were recorded live with the orchestra and the voice cast in the room rather than overdubbed separately, in order to give the songs an cast album-like "energy" the filmmakers and songwriters desired.^[6]

During the course of production, many changes were made to the structure of the film, necessitating the replacement and re-purposing of songs. After screening a mostly animated version of the "Be Our Guest" sequence, story artist Bruce Woodside suggested that the objects should be singing the song to Belle rather than her father.^[4] Wise and Trousdale agreed, and the sequence and song were retooled to replace Maurice with Belle.^[4]

"Human Again" was dropped from the film before animation began, as its lyrics caused story problems about the timeline over which the story takes place.^[4] This required Ashman and Menken to write a new song in its place. "Something There", in which Belle and Beast sing (via voiceover) of their growing fondness for each other, was composed late in production and inserted into the script in place of "Human Again".^[6] Menken would later revise "Human Again" for inclusion in the 1994 Broadway stage version of Beauty and the Beast, and another revised version of the song was added to the film itself in a new sequence created for the film's Special Edition re-release in 2002.^[4][6]

Ashman died of AIDS-related complications on March 14, 1991, eight months prior to the release of the film. He never saw the finished film, and his work on Aladdin was completed by another lyricist, Tim Rice.^[13] A tribute to the lyricist was included at the end of the credits crawl: "To our friend, Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice, and a beast his soul. We will be forever grateful. Howard Ashman: 1950–1991".

A pop version of the "Beauty and the Beast" theme, performed by Céline Dion and Peabo Bryson over the end credits, was released as a commercial single from the film's soundrack, supported with a music video. The Dion/Bryson version of "Beauty and the Beast" became an international pop hit, reaching the Top Ten of the singles charts in the United States and the United Kingdom^[19][20]

Musical numbers

1. "Belle" - Belle, Gaston, & Townspeople
2. "Belle" (Reprise)- Belle
3. "Gaston" - Gaston, Lefou, & Townspeople
4. "Gaston" (Reprise) - Gaston & Lefou
5. "Be Our Guest" - Lumière, Mrs. Potts, & Enchanted Objects
6. "Something There" - Belle, Beast, Lumière, Cogsworth, & Mrs. Potts
7. "Human Again" (added in the 2002 special edition) - Lumière, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, Wardrode, Chip & Enchanted Objects
8. "Beauty and The Beast" - Mrs. Potts
9. "The Mob Song" - Gaston, Lefou & Townspeople

Release

The film was shown at the New York Film Festival in September 1991. Because the animation was only about 70% complete, the film was shown as a "work in progress." Storyboards and pencil tests were used in place of the remaining 30%. In addition, parts of the film that were finished were "stepped back" to previous versions of completion. The "work-in-progress" version of Beauty and the Beast played to a standing ovation from the film festival audience.^[13] The completed film would also be screened out of competition at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.^[21]

The finished film premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on November 13, 1991, and went into wide release through Walt Disney Pictures on November 23. The film was a significant success at the box-office, with more than $145 million in revenues in the United States and Canada alone, and over $403 million in worldwide revenues.^[22][23] This high number of sales made it the third-most successful film of 1991, surpassed only by the summer blockbusters Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Beauty and the Beast was the most successful animated Disney film released to that point, and the first animated film to reach $100 million at the United States and Canadian box offices.^[24]

Reception

Upon the theatrical release of the finished version, the film was universally praised, with Roger Ebert giving it four stars out of four and saying that "Beauty and the Beast reaches back to an older and healthier Hollywood tradition in which the best writers, musicians and filmmakers are gathered for a project on the assumption that a family audience deserves great entertainment, too." The film received mostly positive reviews, among them some of the best notices the studio had received since the 1940s.^[13] Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator, shows Beauty and the Beast with a 93% approval rating as of July 2010 averaged from 55 reviews of the original theatrical release and later theatrical and home video versions.^[25] The use of computer animation, particularly in the "Beauty and the Beast" ballroom sequence, was singled out in several reviews as one of the film's highlights.^[6]

Smoodin writes in his book Animating Culture that the studio was trying to make up for earlier gender stereotypes with this film.^[26] Smoodin also states that, in the way it has been viewed as bringing together traditional fairy tales and feminism as well as computer and traditional animation, the film’s "greatness could be proved in terms technology narrative or even politics".^[27] Another author writes that Belle "becomes a sort of intellectual less by actually reading books, it seems, than by hanging out with them," but says that the film comes closer than other “Disney-studio” films to "accepting challenges of the kind that the finest Walt Disney features met".^[28] David Whitley writes in The Idea of Nature in Disney Animation that Belle is different from earlier Disney heroines in that she is mostly free from the burdens of domestic housework, although her role is somewhat undefined in the same way that "contemporary culture now requires most adolescent girls to contribute little in the way of domestic work before they leave home and have to take on the fraught, multiple responsibilities of the working mother".^[29] Whitley also notes other themes and modern influences, such as the film's critical view of Gaston’s chauvinism and attitude towards nature, the cyborg-like servants, and the father’s role as an inventor rather than a merchant.^[29]

Betsy Hearne, editor of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, writes that the film belittles the original story's moral about "inner beauty", as well as the heroine herself, in favor of a more brutish struggle; "In fact," she says, "it is not Beauty's lack of love that almost kills Disney's beast, but a rival's dagger."^[30]

Stefan Kanfer writes in his book Serious Business that in this film "the tradition of the musical theater was fully co-opted", such as in the casting of Broadway performers Angela Lansbury and Jerry Orbach.^[31]

IGN named Beauty and the Beast as the greastest animated film of all time, directly ahead of Wall-E.^[32]

Merchandise and spin-offs

Beauty and the Beast merchandise covered a wide variety of products, among them storybook versions of the film's story, a comic book based on the film published by Disney Comics, toys, children's costumes, and other items. In addition, the character of Belle has been integrated into the "Disney Princess" line of Disney's Consumer Products division, and appears on merchandise related to that franchise.

In 1995, a live-action children's series entitled Sing Me a Story with Belle began running in syndication, remaining on the air through 1999. Two direct-to-video midquels (which take place during the timeline depicted in the original film) were produced by Walt Disney Television Animation: Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas in 1997 and Belle's Magical World in 1998.

Reissues

In 2002, Beauty and the Beast was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." In January of the same year, the film was restored and remastered for its January 1, 2002 re-release in IMAX theatres in a special edition edit including a new musical sequence. For this version of the film, much of the animation was cleaned up, a new sequence set to the deleted song "Human Again" was inserted into the film's second act, and a new digital master from the original CAPS production files was used to make the high resolution IMAX film negative.

A sing along edition of the film, hosted by Jordin Sparks, will be released in select theaters on September 29 and October 2, 2010. Prior to the showing of the film Sparks will show a behind-the-scenes look at exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the newly restored high definition animated classic and the making of her all-new Beauty and the Beast music video. There will also be commentary from producer Don Hahn, interviews with the cast and an inside look at how the animation was created.^[33]

A 3D version of the film was scheduled to be re-released in theatres on February 12, 2010 in the Disney Digital 3-D format, but the project has been postponed for the time being due in the United States due to Disney not wanting to oversaturate the market.^[34] However, this version did have a limited run in New Zealand at Hoyts Cinemas beginning August 2010^[35] and is expected to be released Stateside in 2011, followed by a Blu-ray 3D release later in the year.^[36]

Home video releases

The film was released to VHS and Laserdisc on October 30, 1992 as part of the Walt Disney Classics series, and was later put on moratorium. This version contains a minor edit to the film: skulls that appear in Gaston's pupils for two frames during his climatic fall to his death were removed for the original home video release.^[6] No such edit was made to later reissues of the film. The "work-in-progress" version screened at the New York Film Festival was also released on VHS and Laserdisc at this time.

Beauty and the Beast: Special Edition, as the enhanced version of the film released in IMAX/large-format is called, was released on 2-Disc "Platinum Edition" DVD and VHS on October 8, 2002. The DVD set features three versions of the film: the extended IMAX Special Edition with the "Human Again" sequence added, the original theatrical version, and the New York Film Festival "work-in-progress" version. This release went to "Disney Vault" moratorium status in January 2003, along with its direct to video follow-ups Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas and Belle's Magical World.

A home video re-release is planned for October 5, 2010 on Blu-Ray as part of the new "Diamond Edition" line, with a 2-disc standard DVD release on November 23, 2010.^[37][38]

Stage musical

On Monday, April 18, 1994, a stage adaptation, also titled Beauty and the Beast, premiered on Broadway at the Palace Theatre in New York City. The show transferred to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 11, 1999. The commercial (though not critical) success of the show led to productions in the West End, Toronto, and all over the world. The Broadway version, which ran for over a decade, received a Tony Award, and became the first of a whole line of Disney stage productions. The original Broadway cast included Terrence Mann as the Beast, Susan Egan as Belle, Burke Moses as Gaston, Gary Beach as Lumiere, Heath Lamberts as Cogsworth, Tom Bosley as Maurice, Beth Fowler as Mrs. Potts, and Stacey Logan as Babette the feather duster. Many celebrities also starred in the Broadway production during its thirteen year run including Kerry Butler, Deborah Gibson, Toni Braxton, Andrea McArdle, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Christy Carlson Romano, Ashley Brown, and Anneliese van der Pol as Belle; Chuck Wagner, James Barbour, and Jeff McCarthy as the Beast; Meshach Taylor, Jacob Young, and John Tartaglia as Lumiere; and Marc Kudisch, Christopher Sieber, and Donny Osmond as Gaston. The show ended its Broadway run on July 29, 2007 after 46 previews and 5,464 performances.

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's song "Beauty and the Beast" won the Academy Award for Best Music, Song, while Menken's score won the award for Best Music, Original Score. Two other Menken and Ashman songs from the film, "Belle" and "Be Our Guest", were also nominated for Best Music, Song. Beauty and the Beast was the first picture to receive three Academy Award nominations for Best Song, a feat that would be repeated by The Lion King (1994), Dreamgirls (2006), and Enchanted (2007). Academy rules have since been changed to limit each film to two nominations in this category.

The film was also nominated for Best Sound and Best Picture. It was the first and only animated film to be nominated for Best Picture, until the nomination of Disney/Pixar's Up in 2010, owing in part to the widening of the Best Picture field to ten nominees. It lost to the horror film The Silence of the Lambs.

With six nominations, the film currently shares the record for the most nominations for an animated film with WALL-E (2008), although, with three nominations in the Best Original Song category, Beauty and the Beast's nominations span only four categories, while WALL-E's nominations cover six.

Golden Globes

Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film to win a Golden Globe for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy. This feat was repeated by The Lion King and Toy Story 2.

Grammy Awards

Other awards

In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten" lists of the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres based on polls of over 1,500 people from the creative community. Beauty and the Beast was acknowledged as the 7th best film in the animation genre.^[39][40] In previous lists, it ranked #22 on the Institutes's list of best musicals and #34 on its list of the best romantic American films. On the list of the greatest songs from American films, Beauty and the Beast ranked #62.

References

External links

• Beauty and the Beast at the Internet Movie Database
• Beauty and the Beast at Allmovie
• Beauty and the Beast at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Beauty and the Beast at Rotten Tomatoes
• Beauty and the Beast at Box Office Mojo