Sleeping Beauty

Animation, Family, Musical, Fantasy, Romance

Barbara Jo Allen	Fauna
Eleanor Audley	Maleficent
Mary Costa	Princess Aurora/Briar Rose
Verna Felton	Flora
Taylor Holmes	King Stefan
Barbara Luddy	Merryweather
Bill Shirley	Prince Phillip
Bill Thompson	King Hubert
Bill Amsbery	Maleficent's goon
Candy Candido	Maleficent's goon
Animated Classic

Director	Clyde Geronimi; James Algar
Producer	Walt Disney
Writer	Erdman Penner; Charles Perrault

Disney's 1959 animated effort was the studio's most ambitious to date, a widescreen spectacle boasting a gorgeous waltz-filled score adapting 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 16th birthday. This, of course, would deny her a happily-ever-after with her true love. Things almost but not quite turn out that way, thanks to the assistance of some bubbly, bumbling fairies named Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. 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. And Malificent's castle, filled with warthogs and demonic imps in a macabre dance celebrating their evil ways, manages a certain creepy grandeur. --David Kronke