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) to the Beast", whose personality ultimately helps make the Beast a more appealing hero despite the latter character's own flaws. While the Beast maintains "a heart of gold" despite being hideous in appearance, Gaston boasts a handsome exterior but remains "rotting on the inside"; the Beast risks becoming like Gaston on the inside if he fails to change his ways. Gaston represents "the difference between outward beauty and beauty of the soul", one of the film's central themes. The fact that Gaston's cruel nature is not mirrored by his handsome exterior "further emphasiz[es] the film’s message about inner beauty." A