Beauty and the Beast

1946 French version of fairy tale

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Belle is a complete whore. Magic gloves! And they all lived happily ever after.

I liked Cocteau's surrealist Orphic Trilogy (especially the first two-thirds) better, but this had the same sort of dreamy, atmosphere and ingenious special effects--backwards filming, tricky mirrors, moving statues. Memorable imagery works, but unfortunately, some old-time overacting and a goofy script, the latter which could actually be more of a problem with translation, keep this from being really great. Cocteau was a poet, and the majority of this looks like the work of a poet. After an extended exposition, slowly unfolding melancholic scenes of Beauty lamenting her situation in the Beast's castle, and a believably paced romance, the end feels a little rushed, almost like the director got bored and just wanted to end things. Choppy ending. I don't really care for the fairy tale's ending anyway.

My wife, a beauty, took this photograph of beastly me watching Beauty and the Beast: