Beauty and the Beast (1946 film) appealing and problematic", saying "Full of baroque interiors, elegant costumes, and overwrought jewelry (even tears turn to diamonds), the film is all surface, and undermines its own don't-trust-a-pretty-face and anti-greed themes at every turn." In 2010, the film was ranked #26 in "Empire" magazine's "100 Best Films of World Cinema". 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 Beauty and the Beast Beauty and the Beast () is a fairy tale written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740 in "La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins" ("The Young American and Marine Tales"). Her lengthy version was abridged, rewritten, and published first by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756 in "Magasin des enfants" ("Children's Collection") and by Andrew Lang in the "Blue Fairy Book" of his "Fairy Book" series in 1889, to produce the version(s) most commonly retold. It was influenced by some earlier stories, such as "Cupid and Psyche", "The Golden Ass" written