Beauty and the Beast (1946 film) Beauty and the Beast (1946 film) Beauty and the Beast ( - also the UK title) is a 1946 French romantic fantasy film directed by French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau. Starring Josette Day as Belle and Jean Marais as the Beast, it is an adaptation of the 1757 story "Beauty and the Beast", written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont and published as part of a fairy tale anthology. The plot of Cocteau's film revolves around Belle's father who is sentenced to death for picking a rose from Beast's garden. Belle offers to go back to the Beast in her
Gaston (Beauty and the Beast) from filmmaker Jean Cocteau's 1946 film adaptation of the fairy tale into their own version of "Beauty and the Beast". Gaston, a character who does not exist in the original fairy tale, was among several elements borrowed from the live-action version of the story, based on a character Cocteau himself had created specifically for his film: Avenant, portrayed by French actor Jean Marais who also plays the Beast in a dual role. Similar to Cocteau's addition of Avenant, Gaston was created for the animated adaptation because Disney felt that the story could potentially benefit from a legitimate villain, which the