Often considered the best animated film ever and the only one to ever be nominated for Best Picture on a return viewing years later, Beauty and the Beast doesn’t seem to be quite the masterpiece we once thought.
Dig through the cacophany, though, and you will indeed find one of the better animated experiences of the pre-Pixar era. The story is of course straight from the classics. Mean monster living in big castle apprehends young lass, and she will love him! Of course, he’s under a spell and if he finds true love before his 21st birthday, he’ll reveal his true self a prince and the couple will live happily ever after. But what woman will fall in love with a monster like The Beast?
For a typically Disney “modern woman,” our Belle is awfully provincial, willingly accepting a life as the Beast’s semi-slave (which of course gives her the chance to love him) while an animatronic candle and coatrack clean him up so he can properly woo her. The movie’s presumed high point comes during a semi computer animated dance in a large ballroom while Angela Lansbury croons the title song (which actually won an Oscar). Ah, the suckers we were back in 1991.
It’s writ large and supremely cartoony, but at least Belle recognizes the impossibility of the menagerie of singing, animatronic furniture and cutlery (most Disney heroines see nothing wrong with a song and dance flounder), but she goes along in good spirits. And it’s that sense of fun in Beauty that makes it worthwhile, even today. There are even moments of greatness in the film notably the finale, in which the Beast and Belle’s evil other suitor do battle on the castle’s rooftop. And when Angela Lansbury isn’t singing, the songs aren’t too shabby, either.
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