Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Today we visit another classic fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty.

The Movie:

Sleeping Beauty is the 16th movie in the Disney Animated Canon.  Upon its initial release, Sleeping Beauty received mixed reviews.  Even though it was the second highest grossing movie of the year, it lost money at the box-office due to high production costs and a protracted development.  This loss forced Disney into using cheaper animation techniques that defined the styles of the end of the Silver Age and the Dark Age.  Disney also abandoned fairy tales after this movie, and the company wouldn't make another one until The Little Mermaid thirty years later.

Sleeping Beauty is based on the Charles Perrault fairy tale.  The movie opens with King Stefan holding a celebration for the birth of his daughter Aurora.  The evil Maleficent crashes the party uninvited, and places a curse on the child.  To protect Aurora, she is sent into hiding until her 16th birthday as Briar Rose, placed under the guardianship of the fairies Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather.  However, on her 16th birthday, a chance meeting with Prince Phillip sets Aurora on the path to her ultimate destiny.

For some reason, though I did see it as a kid, Sleeping Beauty was never a regular in my Disney rotation.  As I have revisited it as an adult, I found it to be a very enjoyable movie.  The animation style is very unique.  The movie often is criticized for Aurora and Phillip not doing much and being bland characters, but here the protagonists really are the three fairies, who have much more character.  However, this movie is best known for its villain, Maleficent, and for good reason.  When she describes herself as the Mistress of Evil, she isn't lying.

The other thing this movie has going for it is the music.  George Bruns gets composing credit, but most of the music is lifted straight from Tchaikovsky's ballet of Sleeping Beauty.  Because of this Sleeping Beauty might have the best score of any Disney movie.  Even the songs are selections from the ballet with lyrics set to them.  The only song to really stand out is the movie's signature tune, "Once Upon a Dream," based on the Garland Waltz, and boy does the movie milk this one for all its worth.

One the running gags of the movie is the quarrel between the fairies if her birthday dress should be pink or blue.  Interestingly, most marketing and appearances of Aurora in her princess dress show it as pink, which was the color when it was made, but when Aurora wears it, it is blue except for the dueling colors at the end.  (Even the coloring in the above poster is a lie, as it was blue when she was asleep.)

Presence in the Parks:

This movie gets a very notable presence in the iconic castle at Disneyland.  The castle in the center of the park was supposedly originally going to be named for Snow White, but as this movie was in production when Disneyland opened in 1955, the castle was named Sleeping Beauty Castle to help promote the upcoming film.  In 1957, in what was originally unused space, a walk-through showing scenes from the movie was added, two years before the movie actually come out.

Sleeping Beauty Castle, Disneyland, December 2002

Disneyland, July 1988

On the east coast, Aurora can be found in the France Pavilion at Epcot and sometimes in the Princess Fairytale Hall in the Magic Kingdom.  Other characters from the movie are found in the current parade, Festival of Fantasy Parade.

Maleficent has a significant presence in Fantasmic! both in animation with the other villains and in her dragon form battling Mickey.

Fantasmic! Hollywood Studios, May 2015