Beauty and the Beast (1991 film) servants' human forms. The Prince and Belle host a ball for the kingdom, where they dance happily. After the success of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" in 1937, Walt Disney sought out other stories to adapt into feature films, with "Beauty and the Beast" being among the stories he considered. Attempts to develop the "Beauty and the Beast" story into a film were made in the 1930s and 1950s, but were ultimately given up because it "proved to be a challenge" for the story team. Peter M. Nichols states Disney may later have been discouraged by Jean Cocteau having
Beauty and the Beast peasants; it may reflect the social changes occurring at the time of its first writing. Hamburger (2015) points out that the design of the Beast in the 1946 film adaptation by Jean Cocteau was inspired by the portrait of Petrus Gonsalvus, a native of Tenerife who suffered from hypertrichosis, causing an abnormal growth of hair on his face and other parts, and who came under the protection of the French king and married a beautiful Parisian woman named Catherine. The tale has been notably adapted for screen, stage, prose, and television over the years. Beauty and the Beast Beauty and