Sleeping Beauty
Short description
A king and queen finally have a daughter, Aurora, and celebrate her birth with a grand gathering. They invite three good fairies but leave out the evil fairy Maleficent, who arrives uninvited and places a curse on the infant: on her sixteenth birthday she will prick her finger on a spindle and fall into an endless sleep. The fairies cannot undo the spell, but they soften it so that Aurora will wake only if she receives a kiss from her beloved. The princess is hidden away in the woods, raised in secret by the fairies, while Maleficent keeps searching for her, determined that nothing will stop the curse from running its course.
This animated fantasy was directed by Clyde Geronimi, the fourteenth of the fifteen films he directed in chronological order, following Lady and the Tramp and preceding One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Erdman Penner wrote the screenplay, and Walt Disney produced for Walt Disney Productions, with 42 credited crew members. Mary Costa voices Aurora, Bill Shirley voices Prince Phillip, and Eleanor Audley voices Maleficent, with Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy and Barbara Jo Allen among the voice cast.
The film cost about 6 million dollars and took in roughly 52 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 8.2 out of 10 from 46 reviews, while on TMDB it has 6.9 out of 10 from 5,579 votes.
What's left behind the scenes
- As early as 1938, Walt Disney planned to make an animated film based on Charles Perrault's fairy tale 'Sleeping Beauty,' but due to the onset of World War II and the studio's financial problems, Disney had to devote himself entirely to producing military training films, shorts, and 'package' films ('Make Mine Music,' 'Melody Time,' 'Fun and Fancy Free,' etc.).
- The famous waltz of Aurora and Phillip was used in 1991 in the Disney animated feature 'Beauty and the Beast'.
- The storybook shown at the beginning of the film was real. It was created by Eyvind Earle, who was responsible for the film's design, backgrounds, and colors. The book was restored in 2008.
- Walt Disney made it a point not to meet with the actors voicing the lead roles or give them any directions. Mary Costa (Princess Aurora) began her musical career at the age of nine. Soon, it became her dream to meet Walt Disney and work with him. The day after her studio audition, she was notified that she had got the job. However, every time she asked for Walt's directions during recording, none were provided. He did not meet her until the film was completed, as he feared influencing her individuality; it was only three years later that they had breakfast together for the first time.
- The widescreen format required immense attention to detail. Some animators were only able to create a single character drawing per day, and one second of a character in motion required 24 drawn images.
- The argument between the good fairies Flora and Merryweather over whether Aurora's dress should be pink or blue was the result of a real-life dispute between the film's creators on that very same issue.
- For the first time in the history of the Walt Disney Company, a single person was responsible for the color, backgrounds, and overall design of the entire project. That person was Eyvind Earle. Earle's colleagues disliked his working methods (as well as the results he achieved). It took Earle from 7 to 10 working days to create a background detailed in every aspect, whereas it typically took no more than one working day.
- A flamethrower was used to create the sound effect of the dragon's fiery breath. The sounds of the jaws snapping were actually the clicking of castanets.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
