Beauty and the Beast (Trousdale, Wise, 1991)

An enchanted beast falls in love with the youngest daughter of a hapless inventor.

The Disney version of the original Cocteau version is delightful to watch, but obviously lacks the political allusions of the earlier rendering. I cannot really decide which one reverberates more in my mind, but I am confident in assuming that the black-and-white version will stand the test of time much better.

Still there was a lot to like in the Disney version: the playfulness of the supporting cast and the very original animation is always a delight to watch - the overly cautious butler and the stupid happy stable master make a great team, and although their dialogue might have been wittier in a more "adult" script, it still made me grin here and there.

The ballroom sequence which - if I remember correctly - was the first foray into the realm of 3D for Disney is still beautiful to watch. The camera movement seems a bit unmotivated, maybe because the vocabulary for the weightless rig imagery hadn't been established yet.

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