Mary Costa
Princess Aurora/Briar Rose
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Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution. Based on Charles Perrault 's 1697 fairy tale, the production was supervised by Clyde Geronimi, and was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, Eric Larson, and Les Clark. Featuring the voices of Mary Costa ...
- $6 million
- George Bruns
- January 29, 1959
- Walt Disney
Sleeping Beauty: Directed by Les Clark, Clyde Geronimi, Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Hamilton Luske. With Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton.
- (157K)
- Animation, Adventure, Family
- Les Clark, Clyde Geronimi, Eric Larson
- 1959-01-29
1h 14min. Release Date: February 6, 1959. Genre: Animation, Family, Fantasy, Romance. The curse is cast…the magic is real…and one kiss will change everything! Fall under the spell of Sleeping Beauty, the ultimate princess fairy tale that is now part of the acclaimed Walt Disney Signature Collection. Beauty, wonder and thrilling adventure ...
- Clyde Geronimi
- Eleanor Audley
- Overview
- Plot
- Cast
- Production
- Reception
- Release
- Trivia
is a 1959 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Productions and originally released to theaters on January 29, 1959, by Buena Vista Film Distribution. The 16th animated feature in the Disney Animated Canon, it was the last animated feature produced by Walt Disney to be based upon a fairy tale (after his death, the studio returned to the genre with The Little Mermaid), as well as the last cel animated feature from Disney to be inked by hand before the studio switched to using the xerography process. It is also the first animated feature to be shot in Super Technirama 70, one of many large-format widescreen processes (only one more animated film, The Black Cauldron, has been shot in Super Technirama 70). It spent nearly the whole decade of the 1950s in production: the story work began in 1951, the dialogue was recorded in 1953, animation production took from the same year the dialogue was recorded until 1958, and the musical score by George Bruns, drawn almost entirely from the ballet Spyashchaya krasavitsa by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was recorded in the same year animation production finished.
Due to a lengthy problematic production and high costs, the film was originally a box office failure and did not make up the huge cost of the film. Along with the mixed critical reception, it was also noted to be the film that caused Walt Disney to lose interest in the animation medium. However, the subsequent re-releases proved massively successful, and critics and audiences have since praised it as an artistically animated classic.
In 14th Century Europe, King Stefan and Queen Leah of an unnamed kingdom have a daughter, whom they called her Aurora. All of high and low estate is invited to a grand christening celebration, where baby Aurora is betrothed to young Prince Phillip, the son of her father's friend who rules a neighboring kingdom, King Hubert. Stefan and Hubert both had a dream to unite their respective kingdoms through a future marriage between their respective children.
At the Princess's christening, the royal herald announces the arrival of the three good fairies who came to bless her; Flora (in red), Fauna (in green), and Merryweather (in blue).
•Flora gives her the gift of beauty, which is described in a song as "gold of sunshine in her hair" and "lips that shame the red, red rose."
•Fauna gives her the gift of song, so she may sing like a nightingale.
But before Merryweather can give her gift to the princess, Maleficent, a wicked fairy and self-proclaimed "mistress of all evil," appears on the scene. Angered at not being invited to the christening, she curses Aurora to die when she pricks her finger on a spinning wheel's spindle before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, leaving everyone horrified about Aurora's doomed future. This causes her frightened mother to grab her infant daughter from her cradle in horror and furious Stefan to command his guards to seize Maleficent, who disappears in a flash of thunder and flame.
However, Flora and Fauna point out to Stefan that Merryweather hasn't given her gift to Aurora yet. While Maleficent's curse is far too powerful for Merryweather to undo, she does use her magic to soften the curse, whereby, instead of dying, Aurora will fall into a deep sleep that will only end with Love's First Kiss. Still fearful of his daughter's life, Stefan orders all spinning wheels in the kingdom to be burned as an unsuccessful attempt. Knowing Maleficent will stop at nothing to see her curse fulfilled, least of all a "bonfire", the fairies take Aurora to live with them in the forest, where they can keep her safe from any harm until she turns sixteen and the curse is made void after which she would be reunited with the king and queen. To protect her fully, they even change her name to Briar Rose to conceal her true identity. The King and Queen agree to the arrangement but are deeply saddened to see their child go. The years pass by and while no one knew what happened to the princess, they became excited as her 16th birthday approached.
Uncredited
•Bobby Amsberry as Goon #2 •Candy Candido as Goon #1 •Pinto Colvig as Goon #3 •Dallas McKennon as Owl •Marvin Miller as the Narrator •Purv Pullen as the Birds •Hans Conried as the model and additional voice for King Stefan •Helene Stanley as the model for Aurora •Don Barclay as the model for King Hubert •Jane Fowler as the model for Queen Leah •Francis Bavier, Madge Blake, and Spring Byington as the models for the Three Fairies
Walt Disney first considered making an animated adaptation of Charles Perrault's fairy tale La Belle au bois dormant in 1938. Preliminary artwork was submitted by story artist Joe Grant, but the project did not move forward. Twelve years later, in February 1950, another adaptation of Perrault's fairy tale, Cinderella, premiered and was a huge criti...
During its original release in 1959, the film earned approximately $5.3 million in box office rentals. Its production costs, which totaled $6 million, made it the most expensive Disney film up to that point, and over twice as expensive as each of the preceding three Disney animated features: Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Lady and the Tramp. Its high production costs, coupled with the underperformance of much of the rest of Disney's 1959–1960 release slate resulted in the company posting its first annual loss in a decade for the fiscal year 1960, and massive layoffs were done throughout the animation department.
The film was met with mixed reviews from critics, often citing the film being slowly paced and having little character development. Nevertheless, it has sustained a strong following and is today hailed as one of the best-animated films ever made, thanks to its stylized designs by painter Eyvind Earle who also was the art director for it, its lush music score, and its large-format 70 mm widescreen and stereophonic sound presentation.
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a "Certified Fresh" 89% from 46 reviews with an average rating of 8.2/10. Its consensus states that "This Disney dreamscape contains moments of grandeur, with its lush colors, magical air, one of the most menacing villains in the Disney canon."
Like Alice in Wonderland, which was not initially successful either, the film was never re-released theatrically in Walt Disney's lifetime. However, it had many re-releases in theaters over the decades. It was re-released theatrically in 1970, 1979 (in 70 mm 6 channel stereo, as well as in 35 mm stereo and mono), 1986 and 1995. A 1993 re-release was initially planned, as it was advertised on the 1992 Classics VHS release of Beauty and the Beast; but due to the poor financial performance of Pinocchio's 1992 reissue, the plan was canceled and was delayed two years later to 1995. Its successful reissues have made it the second most successful on release in 1959, second to Ben-Hur, with a lifetime gross of $51.6 million. When adjusted for ticket price inflation, the domestic total gross comes out to $478.22 million, placing it in the top 40 of films.
Disney's distribution arm, Buena Vista Distribution, originally released the film to theaters in both standard 35 mm prints and large-format 70 mm prints. The Super Technirama 70 prints were equipped with six-track stereophonic sound; some CinemaScope-compatible 35 mm Technirama prints were released in four-track stereo, and others had monaural sou...
•The film's copyright was renewed on June 12, 1986.
•"Briar Rose" is another name given to the character, and appears in the German version of the Brothers Grimm as Dornröschen.
•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 artists 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).
•Maleficent's curse can be fulfilled at any time before sunset on Aurora's sixteenth birthday.
•Aurora is one of the seven Princesses of Heart in the popular Disney/Squaresoft game Kingdom Hearts, and Maleficent is a villain in all three mainline Kingdom Hearts games. The good fairies appear in Kingdom Hearts II, giving Sora new clothes.
•The character of Aurora's mother, the Queen, has no name credited to her. The only version of the story which gives her a name is a 1993 adaptation by A.L. Singer, in which she is named Queen Leah.
- 2 min
But on her 16th birthday, when Aurora (Briar Rose) falls in love with a mysterious stranger, the fairies realize that the stranger is her betrothed Prince Phillip. That evening, back at her parents' castle, Maleficent lures Aurora to prick her finger on the spinning wheel's spindle, and Aurora collapses into sleep.
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Color. Color (Technicolor) Theatrical Aspect Ratio. 2.20 : 1, 2.35 : 1. Adaptation of the fairy tale of the same name. Princess Aurora is cursed by the evil witch Maleficent - who declares that before Aurora reaches her 16th birthday she will die by a poisoned spinning-wheel. To try to prevent this, the king places her into hiding, in the care ...
