Movie Overview
Director: Clyde Geronimi
Starring: Mary Costa, Eleanor Audley, Bill Shirley, and Barbara Jo Allen
Genre: Animation, Fantasy, Musical, Romance
Overview
The Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 Animated Movie by Walt Disney. The movie is based on a wonderful tale written by famous writer Charles Perrault that made a splash in the world of cinema. It’s a perfect blend of magic, jealousy, and love.
Storyline
A royal family has a daughter, and he mistakenly does not call the sorceress to the celebration ceremony. Thus the uninvited witch puts a curse on the princess that she’ll to prick her finger with a spindle and fall asleep. Only a kiss from a true love can bring her back to life and break the curse.
Interesting Facts
1-This movie has the same name as the tale written by Charles Perrault to honor him.
2- Back in 1938, Walt Disney conceived to shoot the film. Still, due to the onset of World War II and the studio’s financial problems, Disney had to engage in shooting military training films and short films fully and batch cartoons (“Play My Music,” “Melody Time,” “Fun and Carefree,” etc.). Walt Disney basically did not meet with the actors who voiced the main roles and did not give them any instructions. Mary Costa (Princess Aurora) began her musical career at the age of nine. Soon it became her dream to see Walt Disney and work with him.
The day after auditioning in the studio, she was notified that she got the job. She tried to meet Walt but couldn’t due to his busy schedule. He did not meet with her until the end of the picture, as he was afraid to influence her personality. Only three years later, they had breakfast together for the first time. Sleeping Beauty was the last film to be made in hand-drawn animation.
3- Production of Sleeping Beauty was launched in January 1950, just a month before the release of Cinderella, but work on its script did not begin until early 1951. The script for the cartoon took a long time to write. The original version of the sleeping beauty story was very different from what we see on the screen. Princess Aurora lived locked up in a castle, did not go anywhere, and was very similar to Jasmine from Aladdin.
4- Three good fairies in this version possessed magical powers by their names: Flora – nature, Fauna – animal world, and Maryweza – climate. Walt Disney really wanted The Sleeping Beauty to be somewhat different from his previous films, and he decided that the cartoon’s visual design could become the “key.”
5- The stylist Tom designed the heroine’s original design. He took inspiration from the elegance and slenderness of actress Audrey Hepburn.
6- Aurora’s middle name is Wild Rose.
7- Mark Davis engaged in the design of the maleficent witch. He decided that lyrical digressions and dramatic monologues were also needed for negative characters. According to the animator, Maleficent only does that threatens everyone and makes fiery speeches throughout the film.
8- Since 1951, the artist Edwin Earl worked at the Disney studio. He was made responsible for the visual design of the cartoon. Earl studied French, German, and Flemish to better understand the fifteenth century’s Italian art’s intricacies.
9- Walt Disney has always positioned Sleeping Beauty as a film that fulfills his long-held dream: a dance in the clouds of a prince and a princess. “Love is flight, so show it here,” he told the animators.
10- Sleeping Beauty revolutionized animation; its style took six years. The film’s total budget was six million dollars.
11- The dancer and actress Helen Stanley, who already worked in this position, playing Cinderella’s role in the 1950 cartoon of the same name, became a living model for Aurora.
12- The princess’s fairytale castle has become the Disney studio’s trademark and has become the center of all Disneylands. The Neuschwanstein Castle (Bavaria) became its prototype.
13- Disney personally assigned Ivind Earl, an artist who had worked at the studio since 1951, to be in charge. The new visual design required a fundamentally different approach to depicting characters. The three good fairies were originally designed as strict geometric shapes representing a square, triangle, and circle.
14- Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas often had to go to supermarkets and observe older women’s behavior to achieve such a plan. In the end, they had to convince Walt for a long time that the faces of the three good fairies should not be triangular but rounded.
15- The origin of Princess Aurora is from England.
16- All of the other cartoon characters followed Earl’s style. Disney really wanted the animators to “make the characters in the cartoon as natural as possible, almost flesh and blood.”
17- Disney’s employment on other film and television projects did not fully control the animated picture’s production. However, he came up with several scenes:
- Aurora’s return to the castle.
- The dialogue of three good fairies who discovered the disappearance of the prince.
18- Although Walt had no musical education, professional musicians have always admired his ability to work with singers, composers, and poets. The discussion began with a theme song for Maleficent and the three good fairies. Walter Schulman, the film’s composer, suggested that each of the three fairies should have their own theme song. Walt flatly refused, saying that it is not worth breaking the whole into its parts. It would be too confusing and incomprehensible for the viewer. So they made one song for all.
