Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty 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 process. It is also the first animated feature to be shot in , 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 by , 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.
==Plot==
In 14th century Europe, King Stefan and Queen Leah give birth to their daughter Aurora. All their subjects are invited to the christening celebration, where the infant princess is betrothed to the young Prince Phillip, the son of Stefan's lifelong friend King Hubert, in order to unite their kingdoms when they grow up. Among the guests are also Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, the three good fairies who came to bless Aurora with magical gifts. Flora gives her the gift of beauty, and Fauna gives her the gift of song). Before Merryweather can give her gift, the celebration is interrupted by the arrival of the evil fairy Maleficent. Angered at not being invited, she curses Aurora to die when she pricks her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel before the sun sets on the princess' sixteenth birthday. Stefan orders his guards to seize Maleficent, but she disappears.
Although she is not powerful enough to undo Maleficent's curse, Merryweather uses her gift to weaken it, declaring that instead of dying, Aurora will fall into a deep sleep that will only end with true love's kiss. Still fearing for his daughter's life, Stefan orders all spinning wheels in the kingdom to be burned. Realizing that this is not enough to stop Maleficent, the fairies come up with a plan to hide Aurora in a secluded place, where they can keep her safe until her sixteenth birthday. Stefan and Leah reluctantly agree, and that night the fairies secretly leave the castle with the infant princess, taking her to the woodcutter's cottage deep in the forest. The fairies give up using magic and raise Aurora as a peasant girl, whom they rename Briar Rose to conceal her true identity. Upon discovering that Aurora has disappeared, Maleficent sends her goons to find her, but they spend almost sixteen years looking for a baby, much to Maleficent's frustration. As a last resort, she sends her pet raven Diablo to look for the princess.
As the years pass, Aurora grows into a beautiful young woman with a lovely singing voice. On her sixteenth birthday, the fairies (whom she believes are her aunts) plan to prepare a surprise party and send Aurora to pick berries, warning her not to talk to strangers. In the forest, Aurora meets her animal friends and entertains them with her singing, while wondering why she was sheltered from the world and why her "aunts" are overprotective towards her. Aurora's singing gains the attention of Phillip, who has grown into a handsome young man and is out riding in the woods with his horse Samson. Although she is initially startled, Aurora (who has been dreaming of meeting a handsome prince) becomes attached to Phillip, and they fall in love with each other. Realizing that she has to return home, Aurora flees from Phillip before learning his name (nor does he learn hers), but asks him to come to the cottage that evening.
Back at the cottage, the fairies use magic to conjure gifts for Aurora. While Fauna is preparing the cake, Flora and Merryweather argue about the color of Aurora's dress and begin a duel with magic wands, attracting Diablo's attention. When Aurora returns, she tells her "aunts" that she has fallen in love, and the fairies have to reveal her true identity as a princess and that she is betrothed to Prince Phillip. They also sadly inform Aurora that she will return to her parents' castle this evening and will not be able to see her beloved again. Heartbroken, Aurora runs to her room in tears, while Diablo (overhearing their conversation) flies away to inform Maleficent. Meanwhile, as everyone in the castle await for Aurora's return, Stefan and Hubert argue about their children's future that nearly resulted in a brief brawl. Eventually, Phillip arrives to tell Hubert about a peasant girl he met and wishes to marry despite his prearranged marriage to Aurora. Hubert is upset at this and fails to dissuade Phillip, who rides off to meet his beloved in the forest cottage.
Shortly before the sunset, the fairies return Aurora to the castle and briefly leave her alone in her chambers. Maleficent appears and hypnotizes Aurora, luring her to a tower room, where Maleficent conjures the spinning wheel. Realizing their mistake, the fairies try to go after and save Aurora, but they are too late as Aurora pricks her finger on a spindle at Maleficent's order. Having fulfilled her curse, Maleficent taunts the fairies and disappears. Unwilling to break her parents' hearts about their failure, the fairies place the sleeping Aurora in a bedroom in the highest tower and put everyone in the kingdom to sleep until their princess awakens. As she casts the spell, Flora overhears a drowsy conversation between Hubert and Stefan, learning that Phillip is the man Aurora fell in love with. The fairies rush to the cottage, where they discover that Phillip has been captured by Maleficent and her goons.
The fairies infiltrate Maleficent's domain, the Forbidden Mountain, where they discover Maleficent tauntingly revealing Aurora's identity to Phillip in the dungeon, as well as her plans to keep Phillip imprisoned until he is an old man on the verge of death before releasing him to find Aurora, who will not age a day. Once Maleficent leaves, the fairies free Phillip and help him escape the Forbidden Mountain, arming the prince with the Sword of Truth and the Shield of Virtue. Warned by Diablo (right before he is petrified by Merryweather), Maleficent attempts to thwart Phillip by surrounding Stefan's castle with a forest of thorns, but Phillip hacks his way through it. Enraged again, Maleficent then confronts him personally by blocking his path at Stefan’s castle, Transforming herself into a gigantic fire-breathing dragon, Maleficent fights with Phillip until she corners him at a cliff. With the help of the fairies, he throws the sword into Maleficent's heart, which instantly kills her and sending her crashing down into the abyss.
Afterwards, the fairies lead Phillip to the highest tower, where he finds and awakens Aurora with a kiss, saving her and the rest of the kingdom. Just as Stefan and Hubert were about to resume their conversation, Aurora and Phillip descends to the ballroom, where Aurora reunites with her parents and then happily waltzes with Phillip. The fairies joyfully look on, though Flora and Merryweather resume their argument about the color of Aurora's dress.
==Cast==
*Mary Costa as Aurora
*Bill Shirley as Phillip
*Eleanor Audley as Maleficent
*Verna Felton as Flora
*Barbara Luddy as Merryweather
*Barbara Jo Allen as Fauna
*Taylor Holmes as King Stefan
*Bill Thompson as King Hubert
===Uncredited===
*Marvin Miller as the Narrator
*Candy Candido as Diablo, Goon #1
*Pinto Colvig as Goon #2
*Bobby Amsberry as Goon #3
*Dallas McKennon as Owl
*Purv Pullen as the Birds
==Production==
Walt Disney began developing an animated adaptation of 's 1697 fairy tale La Belle au bois dormant in 1950, after registering the production title with a Motion Picture Association of America on January 19. It is believed that he was prompted by the positive reaction of the preview audience to Cinderella, which was set to be released the following month. Disney first attempted to produce Sleeping Beauty back in 1938, with Joe Grant recalling doing preliminary work during the late 1930s, but the project did not work out at the time. Envisioning Sleeping Beauty as his "masterpiece" (a film that would be the pinnacle of his studio's achievements in animation), Disney intended to pour all the resources necessary to achieve that. Throughout the film's production, he also kept reiterating to his staff that they have to make it as different from their previous films (particularly, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella) as possible.
===Story development===
====Early ideas====
To adapt Sleeping Beauty as an animated feature, Walt Disney assigned a small team of writers, which included Bill Peet, Ted Sears, and Winston Hibler; other story artists (such as Ralph Wright, Ken Anderson, and Don DaGradi) joined them as the film's production progressed. From the outset, they decided to extensively revise the plot of the Perrault's tale, omitting its second half (which tells about the life of sleeping beauty after she was awakened by a strange prince and married him) and providing a more convincing romance between the main characters. To flesh out the story, the crew also expanded the role of the fairies (whose number had been reduced from eight to four), turning the good ones into the comical guardians of the princess (much like the dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), and the evil fairy into a more active and formidable villain than her crone counterpart from the original tale. By April 1951, the earliest known story outline was completed, featuring the acquaintance of the prince and the princess before she falls into a slumber, as well as the scene of a climactic wake-up kiss. It also established the names of the fairies and their corresponding magical abilities: Tranquility, the Fairy of Dreams; Fernadell, the Fairy of Forest; Merryweather, the Fairy of Elements; and Maleficent, the Fairy of Darkness.
In this version of the story, Maleficent not only curses the princess, but also gifts the royal family with an indestructible spinning wheel; after all attempts to get rid of it fail, the king and queen send it away and are forced to hide their daughter behind the castle walls, never letting her out. The princess was envisioned as a "poor little rich girl", who grows up discontent in the castle and is burdened by her royal pedigree. Shortly before her sixteenth birthday, the princess changes clothes with her maidservant and secretly escapes from the castle to explore the nearby forest (or visit the country fair), where she meets the prince and falls in love with him. On the princess' sixteen birthday, Maleficent disguises herself as an elderly spinner and tricks her into pricking her finger with the spindle; the good fairies then put the rest of the castle's inhabitants to sleep until the princess is awakened, while Maleficent surrounds the castle with an impenetrable wall of thorns. Several years later, the prince returns from a mission in a distant land and fights Maleficent with the help of the good fairies before waking the princess (as well as the rest of the castle) with a kiss on the forehead. Other story ideas that emerged during this development period involved the fairies attempting to protect the Princess from Maleficent by surrounding the castle with a magical protective circle, as well as Maleficent having a huge falcon as her henchman (in a later version of the story he was rewritten as a more comically incompetent vulture).
====Rewriting====
In June 1952, the full storyboard presentation was completed, but Disney rejected it, concluding that this story approach was too similar to the studio's past efforts. Because of this, the story team had to throw out the first version of the story and start it all over again, while deciding to keep a number of important story points from the early suggestions, such as the prince's acquaintance with the titular character before the fulfillment of the curse and, consequently, a shorter duration of her sleep, which lasted a hundred years in the original fairy tale. Part of Disney's difficulty was trying to make his third princess, who was named Aurora, different from Snow White or Cinderella. First of all, it was decided to remove knowledge of her own plight from the princess, so she could be viewed simply as a person or a personality, since there would be no requirement to inform the character's actions or behavior through her predicament. To do that, the story artists came up with an idea to have the fairies rear her up in a forest cottage, with the princess being completely unaware of her background or the danger she was in. Also, Aurora was given a different personality style—"a freshness and a modern sensibility" to make her more appealing to audience. At the same time, Walt considered it important to emphasize the character of the prince, who was named Phillip; this role had been minimized in Snow White, because the draftsmanship of a realistic male figure was rather "crude" back then, but, since his animators' skills have improved over the years, Disney felt confident in expanding the prince's role and enhancing his personality. Initially, the storyboard artists worked out an elaborate sequence in which Aurora and Phillip would have met during a treasure hunt, organized by the king, but the idea was eventually dropped when it became too drawn out and drifted from the central storyline; instead, it was written that prince and princess would meet in the forest by random chance. Also, to further establish Phillip's role as Aurora's "true love", story artists came up with an idea to have Maleficent kidnap him and plot to keep him prisoner in her castle for a century, which would also serve as a twist on the centennial slumber from the original fairy tale.
Trying to distinguish Sleeping Beauty from his past animated features story-wise, Walt also decided to go in a more serious direction of storytelling and make a movie without the subplots, like the mice in Cinderella, concentrating on the "reality of the story and the subtlety of the main characters". For example, originally the Three Good Fairies, who by that time had been renamed Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, were to rule over the domains, indicated by their names: Flora was to have charge of flowers and plants, Fauna was to oversee the animals and birds, and Merryweather was to control the climate. Although this notion offered many situations for humor, Disney discarded it, feeling that it led the main story nowhere. He also personally cut out a number of gags and comical scenes involving fairies, feeling that they were too "slapsticky" and would be more fitting for Donald Duck shorts, but not for Sleeping Beauty; one of these was a sequence in which Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather unsuccessfully try to bake a birthday cake for Aurora, but in the end they accidentally blow up the oven. Also, in the early versions of the story, Aurora was supposed to directly encounter with Maleficent, who would have tricked her into pricking the finger on the spindle. However, Walt felt that the "eerie, haunting presentation of a victim powerless in the hands of evil" would be the strongest and best statement for the film, so the scene was changed to have Maleficent lure Aurora to her doom under hypnosis, without interacting with her directly. Despite Disney's desire to not repeat themselves, several story elements originated from discarded ideas for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella, including Maleficent's capture of Phillip and his dramatic escape from her fortress, as well as Walt's favorite concept—prince and princess dancing on a cloud.
===="The Deluge"====
As of mid-1952, Disney planned to release Sleeping Beauty on Christmas 1955, however, production did not start until July 1953. By the middle of the same year, Wilfred Jackson, film's supervising director, had recorded the dialogue, assembled a story reel, and was ready to commence preliminary animation work for the pilot scene, where Aurora/Briar Rose and Prince Phillip were to meet in the forest and dance. However, Walt threw out the original version of the sequence, so Jackson, Ted Sears and two more story men underwent a rewrite of it for a number of months. The revised version also received a "lukewarm" reaction from Disney, and he approved it only with such extensive changes that the story artists had to redo the scene almost completely again. In December 1953, Jackson suffered a heart attack, after which animator Eric Larson of Disney's Nine Old Men took over as supervising director; his unit would animate the sequence of Aurora's acquaintance with Phillip, which, subsequently, received the production title "Sequence 8". By April 1954, the release of the film was scheduled for February 1957 (it was subsequently postponed to Christmas), and around the same time the studio was hit by what the production stuff called "The Deluge"—Walt had entered television with Disneyland and Mickey Mouse Club, as well as engaged in the construction of his own theme park. Most of the studio talents, who were working on Sleeping Beauty at that time, were assigned to developing it and television series, and, because of this, the production of the film was temporarily suspended; however, work on the project was not completely abandoned, as it was handed to Erdman Penner and Joe Rinaldi for further story development, while the medieval castle built at Disneyland was specifically named Sleeping Beauty Castle as a way to promote the upcoming film.
Production of Sleeping Beauty resumed in December 1956, although it was ready for a "general storyboard discussion" back in early 1955; by that time the release date had changed again for Christmas 1958. Walt wanted to oversee every aspect of the film or otherwise "he wouldn't accept it", but he was still very focused on Disneyland. Milt Kahl blamed Disney for the delays because "he wouldn't have story meetings, he wouldn't get the damn thing moving", and surmised that Walt cared about everything but this picture. It was becoming clear that Disney's interest in making Sleeping Beauty as the "great animation", as well as in the project as a whole, was flagging. According to the diary of studio executive Harry Tytle, after a screening of finished footage on August 22, 1957, Walt "seemed to be tired, had so much on his mind; he didn't give this the treatment he would have in years past, where he'd go in for a couple of days and fine-tooth comb the whole picture… His comments were general rather than specific." Constant delays in the production of the film led to a significant increase in its costs; in particular, the cost of "Sequence 8", which took several years to produce, amounted to $10 000, which Disney wasn't unhappy with. Relatively late in production, he removed Larson as supervising director and replaced him with Clyde Geronimi. Despite his general unavailability to the making of the film, Walt still managed to take part in the refinement of several story points; in particular, he personally reworked the scene where Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather discover the abduction of Prince Phillip by Maleficent so that it would have more emotion and impact (early storyboards showed that it was supposed to end on the moment when the fairies find the prince's hat). Disney himself also supplied the additional lines of dialogue, and worked with Ollie Johnston, who was the animator of the Three Good Fairies, on the timing of the scene.
===Casting===
Walt Disney was very meticulous about choosing voice actors for Sleeping Beauty. The studio spent three years searching for the voice of Princess Aurora, overhearing sample records of forty female singers, fifteen of whom auditioned. Disney considered abandoning work on the film altogether, before Mary Costa was chosen for the role by June 1952. Thanks to the composer Walter Schumann, who heard her singing at a dinner party for the entertainment industry and invited her to come to the studio literally the next morning, she got to audition for the part. Since she was from Knoxville, Tennessee, Costa had a strong southern accent that nearly prevented her from being cast until she proved that she could sustain a fake "Mid-Atlantic, almost English" accent for the entire film; the filmmakers likened the situation to English actress Vivien Leigh successfully feigning a southern accent for her role as Scarlet O'Hara in the film Gone With the Wind. On the same day, within hours of her audition, Disney contacted Costa to confirm that she got the part. Subsequently, Walt regularly communicated with her for nine months, giving advice or instructions, but almost exclusively via telephone, because he feared that Costa's personality or physical appearance would influence his vision of Aurora (they ultimately met two years later, when Costa was recording "Once Upon a Dream"). Twenty male singers were auditioned before Bill Shirley was chosen as the voice of Prince Phillip. He had a background in light opera, enabling him to speak the "fairy-tale dialogue" with just the right touch. He also was a high baritone, giving his singing a "youthful quality" ideal for the voice of prince. But before he was cast, Bill Shirley was asked to audition together with Mary Costa to make sure their voices complemented each other.
Disney personally suggested Eleanor Audley (who had voiced Lady Tremaine in Cinderella) for the role of Maleficent. She originally turned the studio down because she was struggling with tuberculosis at the time and did not think she would be up to recording sessions; she reconsidered when she started to feel better. For the Three Good Fairies, Disney chose Verna Felton, Barbara Jo Allen, and Barbara Luddy. Jo Allen (who had achieved fame for her character of Vera Vague on Bob Hope's radio show) got the role of Fauna, whom the story men often compared to Vera Vague. Luddy (who had just voiced Lady in Lady and the Tramp) was cast as Merryweather. The role of Flora, who was described in the early outline as the "matriarch type, large and dominating… talks with a great deal of authority, the practical one", was given to Felton, who had voiced similar characters in Dumbo, Cinderella, and Alice in Wonderland. Felton was also believed to have voiced Queen Leah, but as of today, the studio has no clear records of who this actually was. Another voice regular of the studio Bill Thompson was cast as King Hubert. Hans Conried (who had just voiced Captain Hook and George Darling in Peter Pan) was originally chosen for the role of King Stefan, but was himself replaced with Taylor Holmes for the finished version as Holmes’ last film role.
===Art direction===
Walt Disney decided to make Sleeping Beauty stand out from his earlier features by choosing a different visual style, eschewing the studio's established soft, rounded look for a more stylized one. The earliest preproduction concepts came from Kay Nielsen (who had developed the look of the Night on Bald Mountain segment in Fantasia) in December 1952, suggesting an "ethereal depiction of the Middle Ages". As Ken Anderson recalled, Nielsen's pastel artwork "was just great, but it involved working on black paper, so it had a kind of inherent black mood"; it also was not "easy to duplicate in animation where you had outlined characters." Disney asked John Hench to help "interpret" Nielsen's work without losing its charm by using opaque cel paint, but by April 1953, Nielsen had left the studio and his design was discarded. The styling had its origin in a visit by John Hench to the Cloisters of Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval galleries in Manhattan, where he saw the series of tapestries ; upon his return, he brought and showed their reproductions to Walt, who replied that's "what he'll do, [the film] will be completely different". After that, Hench made some sketches that were based on the trip to the museum, and the background artist Eyvind Earle made first trial paintings based on those drawings. Earle said that he felt totally free to put his own style into the paintings he based on Hench's drawings, stating, "Where his trees might have curved, I straightened them out… I took a Hench and took the same subject, and the composition he had, and just turned in into my style." When a few such paintings were done, Disney held a meeting at which he said, "For years and years I have been hiring artists like Mary Blair to design the styling of a feature, and by the time the picture is finished, there is hardly a trace of the original styling left. This time Eyvind Earle is styling Sleeping Beauty, and that's the way it's going to be!"
Eyvind Earle joined Walt Disney Productions in 1951, first employed as an assistant background painter for Peter Pan; he was then promoted to a full-fledged background painter for the Goofy cartoon For Whom the Bulls Toil and the color stylist for the Academy Award-winning short Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom. A key influence on Earle was the French illuminated manuscript the Très Riches Heures de Jean, Duc de Berri, an opulent Book of Hours (a devotional volume that included Psalms, prayers, and a calendar of Church feasts); from it, he took the key colors for the film, such as the lapis lazuli blue of the knight's banners, the yellow-green of Maleficent's flames, the shell pink and paler blue of Aurora's gown. Earle paired these historic influences with a second artistic vision: the modern painting of the early 20th century as interpreted by the artists of the innovative UPA animation studio, whose films had flat, boldly colored and stylized characters and backgrounds.
Disney gave Earle a significant amount of freedom in designing the settings and selecting colors for the film. He also painted the majority of the backgrounds himself. He took much of his inspiration from medieval art (particularly the s style of 15th-century tapestries), which tended toward a certain flatness and perspective lessened, most notably the French manuscript that was written by the Limbourg Brothers. The elaborate paintings usually took seven to ten days to paint; by contrast, a typical animation background took only one workday to complete. Disney's decision to give Earle so much artistic freedom was not popular among the Disney animators, who had until the film exercised some influence over the style of their characters and settings.
====Character design and animation====
Because of the artistic depth of Eyvind Earle's paintings, it was decided for the characters of to be stylized so they could appropriately match the backgrounds. While the layout artists and animators were impressed with Earle's paintings, they eventually grew depressed at working with a style that many of them regarded as "too cold, too flat, and too modernist" for a fairy tale feature. A major problem was that the backgrounds were so detailed and busy that it was hard for the animators to make the characters stand out and read against them. Eyvind's request to have the decision in the case of character designs and their color schemes was also met with a rather negative reaction from the animators, who always had a lot of input into the design and color modeling of their characters up to this point. On one occasion, a few of them went up to see Walt and to complain about it, but he didn't back them on this, for he wanted the visual design to carry the picture, while also claiming that the inspirational art he commissioned in the past had homogenized the animators. Tom Oreb was tasked as character stylist that would not only inhabit the style of Earle's backgrounds, but also fit with the contemporary UPA style; likewise with Earle's background styling, the animators complained that Oreb's character designs were too rigid to animate. Unlike the most of the animators, the studio's top draftsmen, Marc Davis and Milt Kahl, embraced Eyvind Earle's sophisticated style, what led to their appointment as supervising animators of the film's leading characters, Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip. Collaborating with Davis, Tom Oreb crafted a "leading lady of elegance", influenced by the features of , who was a new film star at the time of Sleeping Beauty's production. He incorporated the strong horizontal and vertical lines of the backgrounds into Aurora's design, while Marc slightly sharpened her features and clothes to blend with the settings' angular shapes, as well as added Art Nouveau and Art Deco into her hair. The final design, that perfectly complemented Earle's backgrounds, was "more refined" than those of preceding Disney heroines, and thus required much more attention to detail than any animated character before. Quality control animator Iwao Takamoto, who also was Marc Davis' assistant during the film's production, described working with refined drawings of Aurora as a "laborious job", and ultimately limited in-betweeners such as himself to completing only seven drawings per day.
Marc Davis was also selected to supervise the design and animation of Maleficent and, by extension, her pet raven, Diablo. He decided to move on from the early suggestions for the character's design, that included more inhuman, "insect-like" elements, in favor of a more ominous figure, of whom he thought as a "giant vampire bat". Davis' primary inspiration was a religious painting from a Czechoslovakian art book he found in his home library, featuring a figure with the flame-like drapery that he thought would be great to use. He also added the horns and material, based on the bat's wings, around Maleficent's face to achieve what he called a "devil image", while her costume was endowed with a reptilian quality, foreshadowing the dragon into which she would transform at the film's climax. Marc's original designs featured red trim to Maleficent's robe to highlight its flame-like shape, but, in an act of artistic compromise, Eyvind Earle requested the change to lavender as red would come off too strong, in which Davis agreed to. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, who, on contrary to Davis and Kahl, struggled the most to adapt to Earle's style, were given the task of designing and animating Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. At first, Walt considered making the fairies identical, similarly to Huey, Dewey, and Louie, but Frank and Ollie felt that such an approach wouldn't be half as much fun, so they had to do a lot of talking to convince Walt to give the characters more distinctive looks and personalities. Ultimately, they also managed to reach the artistic compromise with Earle: the fairies received the required angularity in their costumes, based on geometrical shapes, but retained a "warm, round, cuddly" feel, akin to the previous Disney characters, with their facial features.
====Live-action reference====
Walt Disney insisted that much of the film's character animation be as close to real life as possible, "near-flesh-and-blood". As was the case with the studio's previous animated features, a live-action reference footage was shot as a guide for the animators, although some of them (such as Milt Kahl) objected to this method, calling it a "a crutch, a stifling of the creative effort."
Helene Stanley (who had provided the live-action reference for the title character in Cinderella) was hired as a model for Aurora by March 1954. The costume that Stanley wore for the scenes with Briar Rose was created by Alice Estes (then a student at Chouinard Art Institute) at the request of Marc Davis (who was her instructor at the time) as her first job assignment for the studio. Additionally, Stanley provided the reference for some scenes of the Three Good Fairies. Spring Byington, Frances Bavier, and Madge Blake were also among the actresses who played the fairies in reference footage.
The role of Prince Phillip was modeled by Ed Kemmer. For the final battle sequence, he had to ride a wooden wagon (imitating a horse), which was controlled by the animators. Cubby O'Brien, then a Mouseketeer of the Mickey Mouse Club, provided the reference for Phillip as a child. In addition to voice acting, Eleanor Audley served as a model for Maleficent, alongside Jane Fowler, who also provided the reference for Queen Leah. In addition to providing a test recording for a deleted song, Hans Conried provided live action reference for King Stefan. Don Barclay (who had modeled Mr. Smee in Peter Pan) modeled for King Hubert, while Franklin Pangborn performed the role of the minstrel.
===Music===
==Reception==
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 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.
==Release==
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 soundtracks. On the initial run, it was paired with the short musical/documentary film Grand Canyon which won an Academy Award.
===Worldwide release dates===
*Argentina: July 9, 1959
*United Kingdom: July 29, 1959
*Germany: October 30, 1959 (West); October 10, 1969 (East)
*Italy: December 1, 1959
*France: December 16, 1959
*Netherlands: December 17, 1959 (English version); April 14, 1960 (Dutch version)
*Finland: December 18, 1959
*Ireland: December 18, 1959
*Sweden: December 19, 1959
*Australia: December 24, 1959
*Mexico: December 24, 1959
*Denmark: December 26, 1959
*Norway: December 26, 1959
*Hong Kong: May 26, 1960
*Japan: July 23, 1960 (distributed by RKO Pictures Japan)
*Spain: October 3, 1960 (Madrid)
*Brazil: December 22, 1960
*Portugal: April 2, 1961
*Poland: 1962
*Turkey: April 23, 1962
*Hungary: June 30, 1966
*Kuwait: May 24, 1999
===Home video===
In 1986, the film was first released on both VHS and Laserdisc under the Classics collection, becoming the first Disney Classics video to be digitally processed in Hi-Fi stereo. Then it underwent an extensive digital restoration in 1997, and that version was released on both VHS and Laserdisc again (this time with the Laserdisc in widescreen version, albeit letterboxed) as part of the Masterpiece collection, and in 2003, it was released to DVD in a 2-disc "Special Edition" that included both the original widescreen version and a pan and scan version as well. A Platinum Edition DVD/Blu-ray Disc was released on October 7, 2008 with a never-before-seen 2.55:1 expanded version of the film. The DVD/Blu-ray returned to the Disney Vault in 2010. It was released as a Diamond Edition title on October 7, 2014, and on September 24, 2019, it was re-released as an Anniversary Edition as part of the Signature Collection.
==Videos==
Sleeping Beauty - 1958 Teaser Trailer|1958 Teaser Trailer
Sleeping Beauty Official Trailer-2|1959 Original Theatrical Trailer
Sleeping Beauty - 1970 Reissue Trailer (35mm 4K)|1970 Reissue Trailer
Sleeping Beauty - 1986 Reissue Trailer (35mm 4K)|1986 Reissue Trailer
Sleeping Beauty TV trailer 1986-2|1986 Reissue TV Spot
Sleeping Beauty - 1995 Reissue Trailer|1995 Reissue Trailer
Sleeping Beauty - 2003 Special Edition DVD Trailer -2|2003 Special Edition Trailer
The Making of Sleeping Beauty-0|The Making of Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty - 2008 Platinum Edition Blu-ray-DVD Trailer|2008 Platinum Edition Trailer
Sleeping Beauty Official Diamond Edition Blu-Ray Trailer -1 (2014) Disney Movie HD-2|2014 Diamond Edition Trailer
==Gallery==
==Trivia==
*The film's copyright was renewed on June 12, 1986.Online Copyright Catalog search (form autofilled, pressing "begin search" brings up the entry)
*"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.
*The cry voiced by Lucille La Verne as The Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was re-used for Maleficent when her dragon-form is pierced by Prince Phillip's sword.
*Rich Animation Studio's 1994 animated film was quite similar to this film. In that film, it also had a princess (in this case named Odette) being cursed by an evil enchanter (named Sir Rothbart), just as Maleficent cursed Aurora. During the climax of that film, Odette "dies" temporarily, just as Aurora fell into a deep sleep, and a prince (here named Derek) saves her by killing Rothbart, who had transformed himself into the "Great Animal," just as Maleficent transformed herself into a dragon and Prince Phillip killed her and saved Aurora (and the whole kingdom) with "True Love's Kiss" (as opposed to "Love's First Kiss"). Interestingly, though the story is also based on a Tchaikovsky ballet (), the filmmakers decided not to adapt the ballet score. Instead, they went with a generic '90's pop score by , the score composer for the film and for the first two sequels of the Swan Princess franchise: and .
*Hidden Mickey: The biscuits the fairies eat with tea are shaped like Mickey Mouse's head and ears.
*The film was made whilst Walt Disney was building Disneyland (hence the four-year production time). To help promote the film, Imagineers declared the castle there to be Sleeping Beauty's (it was originally to be Snow White's).
*Second only to Dumbo (who didn't speak at all), this Disney title character has the fewest lines of actual dialogue throughout the entire film.
**In fact, Aurora, along with Philip and Leah, say nothing at all in the film's second half, even after the sleeping spell is lifted from the kingdom.
*The musical score throughout the film was provided by the then Graunke Symphony Orchestra (since 1990 called the ), under the direction of the score's adapter, George Bruns, making it the first Disney animated feature to have its musical score directed by Bruns instead of Oliver Wallace.
*The particular melody that plays as Phillip and Aurora descend the stairs toward the film's end was a branle couppé (a short, vigorous country dance) entitled "Cassandre" written by Renaissance composer Thoinot Arbeau, adapted ca. 1590 as a march in honor of King Henri IV of France, and used as something of a national anthem by French royalists; Tchaikovsky, who had a fondness for national anthems, incorporated it into his ballet score to represent the royal court of "Florestan XIV".
*The complex and detailed background paintings, most of which were done by Frank Armitage and Eyvind Earle, usually took seven to ten times longer to paint than average, which takes about a workday to complete. As opposed to having the backgrounds be designed to match the characters, the film's characters were designed to match the backgrounds.
*The film is the only Disney film with square trees.
*The debate on the setting of this film has been a problem for a long time.
*The moment where Aurora pricks her finger, as well as the fight of Prince Phillip with Maleficent, are referenced in the song "Fantasmic", with the lyrics "Maleficent's fury/The spindle so luring/Dragon fight."
*Upon release, the scene where Prince Phillip encounters the dragon was thought too intense for young viewers.
*The original concept for the film began in 1950 (after the studio had animated two other princess fairy tales). Work on it was delayed because Walt Disney's attention was turned to the building of Disneyland.
*Walt Disney had originally envisioned the film as his masterpiece.
*On the Blu-ray releases beginning with the 2008 Platinum Edition release, the film is in 2.55:1 widescreen, unlike its previous home video releases (especially the 1997 laserdisc and the 2003 Special Edition DVD which had 2.20:1 widescreen aspect ratio). Showing more picture on the sides.
*Because the film was such a box office disappointment, Disney focused more on live-action films for two years (there were ten before Disney released another animated feature: 101 Dalmatians. The style of animation in this one was radically different, possibly because it had been such a failure).
*The film was in the archive for seven years.
*The film appears as one of the transition levels in Epic Mickey, found in Dark Beauty Castle.
*The film is the first Disney animated classic to have the 2006 Walt Disney Pictures logo at the end of current releases.
*The Disney studio still have no clear record as to who provided the voice for the Queen, although many people often continue to believe that Verna Felton might have provided two lines for the Queen.
**On the other hand, the truth will never be known or confirmed by the studios as to who provided the voice of the Royal Herald, most likely because of Hans Conried's own replacement by Taylor Holmes for the vocal part of King Stefan in the film's final version.
*Barbara Jo Allen (Fauna) was also known as Vera Vague in some of her other films and for her last film role as the Scullery Maid in The Sword in the Stone.
*A flamethrower was used to create the dragon breath sound effect for the climax of the film, with training films supplied by the US Army.
*Barbara Luddy (Merryweather) lent her voice to Lady in the earlier Disney film Lady and the Tramp. After this one, she would also end up being the voices of Mother Rabbit in Robin Hood and Kanga in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh for her final film.
*Eleanor Audley, (Maleficent), also provided the voice of Lady Tremaine in Cinderella nine years earlier and the original voice of Madame Leota in the Haunted Mansion five years later.
*Before Taylor Holmes was chosen as the final voice for King Stefan in the final version of the film, Hans Conried was considered to voice Stefan as he provided some voice lines for Stefan that can be heard in the demo song called "It Happens I Have a Picture", after lending the voices and modeled for both Captain Hook and Mr. Darling in Peter Pan.
*Verna Felton (Flora) previously lent her voice to the Elephant Matriarch and Mrs. Jumbo in Dumbo, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, and Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp. After this film as Flora, Verna's last film for Disney and for her acting career was providing the voice for Winifred in The Jungle Book.
*Maleficent's horned headdress and bat's-wing-like sleeves, besides being reminiscent of the popular images of horned devils and dragons, reflect actual women's costumes of the fourteenth century.
*The animators couldn't decide what dress color Aurora should wear, so they decided to make it part of the story with the fairies.
*In the opening previews of the 1997 VHS re-released under the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection line, there was a commercial for Disney's Magic Artist on CD-ROM.
*As filmed, the plot bears a remarkable resemblance to that of the novel and lost silent film The Goose Girl except that there is only one girl involved going by two different names.
*When Rose gets her crown from the fairies, she begins crying still wanting to see Prince Phillip, but it's actually not her crying from her voice actress, it's actually Dopey's crying that's reused from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
*Despite having an underwhelming box office performance, it was the highest grossing animated film of 1959, thanks to its successful reissues.
*This is the only Disney Princess film to be released during the time of the civil rights movement, which was a social movement and campaign which began in 1954 until it ended in 1968 for the United States to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country.
*This is the first Disney Princess film to have bows and arrows.
*This is the last Disney Princess film to be released during Walt Disney's lifetime.
*This is also the first Disney Princess film where a prince gets to have a proactive role when he killed the villain in order to save the princess, their respective parents, and everyone else in the kingdom from their indefinite sleeping spell.
*Prince Phillip says that they are living in the fourteenth century, which means that the films' events take place between the mid to late 1300’s. Furthermore, it is also the only Disney film to specifically say the century the film is set.
==Goofs==
*During Rose's birthday party at the cottage, Flora tells Merryweather to lock the door so that they can secretly use their magic to make everything right for Rose to be surprised, but after Flora and Merryweather's color changing fight when Aurora gets home, the door is suddenly unlocked as she easily entered inside.
**However, it could have been unlocked off-screen.
==References in other media==
*The film was referenced in Dan Brown's as an allegory of the Grail quest.
*The music for the film was adapted by Disney's musical director George Bruns from Tchaikovsky's ballet La belle dormant au bois (literally, "The Beauty Sleeping in a Wood"), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award.
**The two songs "I Wonder" and "Once Upon a Dream" are based on "The Garland Waltz" from Tchaikovsky's ballet. It was also used in recent commercials for Cheese, as well as a couple of era cartoons.
*The sleeping spell was spoofed on 's in 1985 in which Scooby-Doo must save and Princess Esmerelda from this spell caused by Maldor the Malevolent. Interestingly, in the episode from , Daphne wore an outfit similar to one of Aurora's.
*The title of the film was later referenced in the episode of Thomas & Friends: Sleeping Beauty.
==References==
==External links==
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<tabber>
|-|Sleeping Beauty=
|-|Disney theatrical animated features=
</tabber>
ar:الأميرة النائمة
da:Tornerose
de:Dornröschen
es:La Bella Durmiente
fi:Prinsessa Ruusunen
fr:La Belle au Bois Dormant
hr:Trnoružica
it:La bella addormentata nel bosco
ja:眠れる森の美女
nl:Doornroosje (film)
no:Tornerose
pl:Śpiąca Królewna
pt-br:A Bela Adormecida
ro:Frumoasa din Pădurea Adormită
ru:Спящая красавица
zh:睡美人
Category:Disney animated features canon
Category:1959 films
Category:Sleeping Beauty
Category:Films based on books
Category:Disney Princess films
Category:Epic Mickey transition levels
Category:Animated films
Category:Traditionally Animated Films
Category:Disney films
Category:Disney Vault Movies
Category:G-rated films
Category:Disney Dreams!
Category:Birthday productions
Category:Academy Award nominated films
Category:National Film Registry films
Category:Films based on fairy tales