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| Tookey's Review |
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| Pro Reviews |
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| Mixed Reviews |
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| Cast |
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| Released: |
1946 |
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| Genre: |
FANTASY
FOREIGN
ROMANCE
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| Origin: |
France |
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| Colour: |
BW |
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| Length: |
96 |
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A girl (Josette Day) saves her merchant father’s life by agreeing to be the prisoner of a hideous Beast (Jean Marais).
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Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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Visually imaginative, surrealistic but slow-moving fairy tale with Freudian overtones, about a young woman who is too attached to her father but learns to love another. Although Josette Day looks a little too mature for her role as the young innocent Beauty (she was, in fact, 32), she plays the part attractively. Jean Marais is superb as the Beast, managing to appear both fierce and vulnerable, but he is much less confident as the foolish Avanant; and he seems incongruously effete as the prince into whom the Beast finally changes. The film is not helped for English-speaking audiences by banal, simplistic subtitles. Cocteau’s inexperience - this was only his second film as director, and his first full-length effort - shows in the more naturalistic scenes; but as soon as the action moves to the Beast’s castle, the film becomes quite magical.
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, Mila Parely