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Sleeping Beauty (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) - 2 Disc DVD and Book Set [1958]
from Disney
directed by Clyde Geronimi

Features:

• PAL

Editorial Review:

Disney's 1959 Sleeping Beauty was the studio's most ambitious effort to date, a lavish spectacle boasting a gorgeous waltz-filled score adapted from the music of Tchaikovsky.

In the 14th century, the malevolent Maleficent (not dissimilar to the wicked queen in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) taunts a king that his infant Aurora will fatally prick her finger on a spinning wheel before sundown on her sixteenth birthday. This, of course, would deny her a happily-ever-after with her true love. Fortunately, some bubbly, bumbling fairies named Flora, Fauna and Merryweather are on hand to assist.

It's not really all that much about the title character--how interesting can someone in the middle of a long nap be, anyway? Instead, those fairies carry the day, as well as, of course, good Prince Phillip, whose battle with the malevolent Maleficent in the guise of a dragon has been co-opted by any number of animated films since. See it in its original glory here, alongside Maleficent's castle, which, filled with warthogs and demonic imps in a macabre dance celebrating their evil ways, manages a certain creepy grandeur. --David Kronke, Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

• a medieval tapestry coming to life..............
  What is so exquisite about Sleeping Beauty is that it looks like a medieval tapestry coming to life. If you look closely at the details in the backgrounds you can see little twists in the leaves and curves in the tree bark which overall gives an ornate and opulent look still refreshing to this day. It was the most expensive film in it's day, it took over four years to make and Walt Disney stated to his artists and animators that they should take their time over it, make it beautiful and so it came as a... more info

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