Beauty and the Beast
Tags: fantasy

Plot synopsis:
A widower merchant lives in a mansion with his six children, three sons and three daughters. All his daughters are very beautiful, but the youngest, Beauty, is the most lovely, as well as kind, well-read, and pure of heart; while the two elder sisters, in contrast, are wicked, selfish, vain, and spoiled. They secretly taunt Beauty and treat her more like a servant than a sister. The merchant eventually loses all of his wealth in a tempest at sea which sinks most of his merchant fleet. He and his children are consequently forced to live in a small farmhouse and work for their living.
Some years later, the merchant hears that one of the trade ships he had sent off has arrived back in port, having escaped the destruction of its compatriots. Before leaving, he asks his children if they wish for him to bring any gifts back for them. The sons ask for weaponry and horses to hunt with, whereas his oldest daughters ask for clothing, jewels, and the finest dresses possible as they think his wealth has returned. Beauty is satisfied with the promise of a rose as none grow in their part of the country. The merchant, to his dismay, finds that his ship's cargo has been seized to pay his debts, leaving him penniless and unable to buy his children's presents.
During his return, the merchant becomes lost during a storm. Seeking shelter, he enters a dazzling palace. A hidden figure opens the giant doors and silently invites him in. The merchant finds tables inside laden with food and drink, which seem to have been left for him by the palace's invisible owner. The merchant accepts this gift and spends the night there. The next morning, as the merchant is about to leave, he sees a rose garden and recalls that Beauty had desired a rose. Upon picking the loveliest rose he can find, the merchant is confronted by a hideous "Beast" which tells him that for taking his most precious possession after accepting his hospitality, the merchant must die. The merchant begs to be set free, arguing that he had only picked the rose as a gift for his youngest daughter. The Beast agrees to let him give the rose to Beauty, but only if the merchant or one of his daughters will return.
The merchant is upset but accepts this condition. The Beast sends him on his way, with wealth, jewels and fine clothes for his sons and daughters, and stresses that Beauty must never know about his deal. The merchant, upon arriving home, tries to hide the secret from Beauty, but she pries it from him. Her brothers say they will go to the castle and fight the Beast, but the merchant dissuades them, saying they will stand no chance against the monster. Beauty then agrees to go to the Beast's castle. The Beast receives her graciously and informs her that she is now mistress of the castle, and he is her servant. He gives her lavish clothing and food and carries on lengthy conversations with her. Every night, the Beast asks Beauty to marry him, only to be refused each time. After each refusal, Beauty dreams of a handsome prince who pleads with her to answer why she keeps refusing him, to which she replies that she cannot marry the Beast because she loves him only as a friend. Beauty does not make the connection between the handsome prince and the Beast and becomes convinced that the Beast is holding the prince captive somewhere in the castle. She searches and discovers multiple enchanted rooms, but never the prince from her dreams.
For several months, Beauty lives a life of luxury at the Beast's palace, having every whim catered to by invisible servants, with no end of riches to amuse her and an endless supply of exquisite finery to wear. Eventually, she becomes homesick and begs the Beast to allow her to go see her family. He allows it on the condition that she returns exactly a week later. Beauty agrees to this and sets off for home with an enchanted mirror and ring. The mirror allows her to see what is going on back at the Beast's castle, and the ring allows her to return to the castle in an instant when turned three times around her finger. Her older sisters are surprised to find her well fed and dressed in finery. Beauty tries to share the magnificent gowns and jewels the Beast gave her with her sisters, but they turn into rags at her sisters' touch, and are restored to their splendour when returned to Beauty, as the Beast meant them only for her. Her sisters are envious when they hear of her happy life at the castle, and, hearing that she must return to the Beast on a certain day, beg her to stay another day, even putting onion in their eyes to make it appear as though they are weeping. They hope that the Beast will be angry with Beauty for breaking her promise and eat her alive. Beauty's heart is moved by her sisters' false show of love, and she agrees to stay.
Beauty begins to feel guilty about breaking her promise to the Beast and uses the mirror to see him back at the castle. She is horrified to discover that the Beast is lying half-dead from heartbreak near the rose bushes from which her father plucked the rose, and she immediately uses the ring to return to the Beast.
Beauty weeps over the Beast, saying that she loves him. When her tears strike him, the Beast is transformed into the handsome prince from Beauty's dreams. The Prince informs her that long ago a fairy turned him into a hideous beast after he refused to let her in from the rain and that only by finding true love, despite his ugliness, could the curse be broken. He and Beauty are married and they live happily ever after together.

Review: Mary Jane???.
There is some controversy in the world of Looney Tune & Merrie Melody fandom if the main character of this short, the little girl who enters The Land of Slumber, is indeed the long-running comic book character Mary Jane.Sniffles the mouse was once described as "Chuck Jones' first star", but he only appeared in about a dozen Merrie Melodies and one Looney Tune in the 1930s and 1940s.
He did have a cameo appearance in 1994's "Space Jam", but the fans who remember him at all generally remember his backup feature in the comic book "Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies" (later simply "Looney Tunes") that ran continuously from 1941 thru 1961, a run matched only by Bugs and Porky.
The feature had him teamed up with a little girl named Mary Jane, and in fact after the first issue was re-titled "Sniffles and Mary Jane".
(In the 1950s this was renamed "Mary Jane and Sniffles".)So is the "Beauty" of "Beauty and the Beast" in fact Mary Jane?
The evidence in its favor includes: 1) The little girl looks like Mary Jane as she was drawn in the very first comic books; 2) She enters Dreamland the same way in the short and the comics, by having magic sand sprinkled on her; 3) In her adventures, she shrinks to toy (or mouse) size; and 4) In her adventures, toys and dolls come to life.
Furthermore, although she is not called (or credited as) "Mary Jane" in the short, she is not called any other name either, so the short does not rule out that she MIGHT be the Mary Jane of comic fame.In fairness, the creator of Mary Jane for the comics, editor Chase Craig (who named the character after his wife) never claimed to have seen "Beauty and the Beast".
(In fact, when he developed the series, only three "Sniffles" cartoons existed and he had only seen one of them!)Officially, the similarity of "Beauty" to Mary Jane is considered a bit of a coincidence, nothing more.
But fans will always wonder if  perhaps, in the back of the creator's mind, the little girl with the late night snack became Sniffles' longstanding friend.(For the record, both the little girl and her tin soldier friend from this short make a return appearance in "Those Beautiful Dames" later that same year.).
In Toyland.
Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.
Actually appreciate it even more through young adults eyes, due to having more knowledge of it, various animation styles, studios, directors and how it all works.'Beauty and the Beast' is not one of Friz Freleng's, a director who did many great cartoons and a director held in high admiration by me, best, not being one of his funniest, wittiest or freshest.
For relatively early Freleng, 'Beauty and the Beast' is worth watching though he would do much better later.
It is never what one would call properly hilarious (but is never unfunny), Freleng's later efforts show more evenness and confidence in directing and the story.
It is quite thin in terms of story and the structure is basically an excuse to string the events along.
It is not terribly imaginative and occasionally momentum is not always there.
Not all the characters are given enough time or personality to properly shine.However, many of the characters are fun, Humpty Dumpty in particular, and the protagonist is appealing.The cartoon has a lot of very amusing moments, especially with Humpty Dumpty and the ducks, some variety and there is a good deal of liveliness.
The conflict is nicely done and while there is a good deal of cuteness and charm the sentimentality doesn't kick in too much.Animation is very good, it's fluid in movement, crisp in shading, vibrant and very meticulous in detail.
The music is lovely on the ears, lushly orchestrated, full of lively energy and characterful in rhythm, not only adding to the action but also enhancing it.Overall, worth watching.
7/10 Bethany Cox. Fairy Tale Fantasy.
Leon Schlesinger reportedly resisted making the jump to color, since it was an added expense.
This was a factor as to why Harman and Ising walked out on him.
Disney made the jump to color in 1932 and Harman and Ising immediately started upon arrival to MGM in mid 1934.Schlesinger's first color short was HONEYMOON HOTEL which was processed in Cinecolor and released in 1934, just prior to the enforcement of the censorship code.
The next color release was a few months later.In contrast to the adult nature of their first entry in color, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST delves into a child's dreamland.
A little girl is visited by the sandman and is taken away to a wonderful fantasy land with many nursery rhyme characters.The premise was likely inspired by the Silly Symphony LULLABY LAND, which came out the previous year.
This short doesn't have the lush visuals, especially due to the limited palette that cinecolor offered.
However this still manages to be a very charming cartoon.
It is interesting that the Schlesinger studio produced a cartoon like this, but cartoons like this were in vogue during this timeframe..
"He wants to snatch her; he's such an awful curse!
. Warner Bros.' prophetic Animated Shorts Seers division artists warn America in song here about the advent of self-confessed serial finger rapist Don Juan Rump.
Warner's prophets predicted that America would be DOOMED if a court-documented marital sexual assaulter was allowed to squat--no matter how briefly--in Our People's White House.
Warner had no stronger term to apply to such a thrice-wed Deplorable than "Beast," so naturally the Looney Tunes crew drew Rump as one of the title characters in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
To drive home their point about how vulnerable ALL Americans would be IF the Public Majority who'd never actually vote for a Game-Show-Host-in-Chief ALLOWED a Red Commie KGB Strongman such as Vlad "The Mad Russian" Putin to rig Our Election utilizing Our Racist Constitution's vestigial "Electoral College" Self-Destruct Clause as a glorified Suicide Pact to inaugurate his Geriatric Goon Puppet as a Leader of the Free World, Warner's cartoonists show their youthful at-risk Flower of American Womanhood landing in Trump Land WITH A BARE BUTT (1:49).
Even AFTER she seems to wake up in her own bed from the nightmare of Rump in power, there's a gratuitous final shot of her butt again being nude and vulnerable even there (7:22)!
This is Warner's way of reminding We Americans of the 21st Century that Chester-the-Molester Rump (he'd be on the National Sex Offender Registry if he belonged to any OTHER political party besides that of the Rich People!) bought BEAUTY Pageants just so he could waltz UNANNOUNCED into female dressing rooms full of naked teen girls, as he's confessed (or bragged) on tape many times.
By purging the screen of all of this BEAST's familiars (7:12) at the end, Warner is warning us that if we DO allow Rump to take power, there must be Swift Justice for EVERY card-carrying member of his Rich People Party when America comes to her senses.
Their ill-gotten weapons, property, and other assets MUST be seized for equal redistribution to the majority of normal, average Americans who would never enable a sex pervert in all his acts of High Treason through Jan. 31, 2017, and all the future atrocities that continue to occur daily.
After the 50 million Deplorables, from Queen of Spades Melancholia Rump, Queen of Diamonds Iwanna Rump, and Queen of Clubs Quicksand Causeway right on down, are stripped of their unearned goods, they must ALL be deported to Canada for a seven-generation cooling off period.
Otherwise, the next bare derriere exposed to further abuse may be YOURS!.
Cute, if rather simple, short and the second Cinecolor short done by Warner Brothers.
This short is rather cute, but not terribly remarkable, save for the novelty found in its being the second cartoon Warner Brothers did in a process called Cinecolor.
As I want to talk about the short, there will be spoilers: A little girl gets out of bed late at night and eats a great deal of food, including the better part of a box of candy, before the "Sandman" comes in and sprinkles sand in her eyes, causing her to fall asleep.
She soon finds herself in a combination toy land/fairy tale book.This struck me as a fairly predictable, run-of-the-mill cartoon, with the best gag involving Humpty Dumpty and a line of dancing toy ducks.
Everything else is fairly mundane, basically girl meets boy, girl kisses boy, girl gets grabbed by monster, boy tries to save girl, girl wakes up from a nightmare-the end.
The animation is nice, even interesting in places, but, frankly, Warner's animation department had done better work then this prior to this cartoon and within two years had seriously improved over this by a country mile.
Worth watching, in any case.