About "Beauty and the Beast"
A sumptuous French version of Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Be^te) was made in 1946, directed by Jean Cocteau, starring his lover Jean Marais as the Beast and Josette Day as Beauty.
In 1991 Disney produced an animated film of Beauty and the Beast with screenplay by Linda Woolverton, music by Alan Menken, and lyrics by Howard Ashman. It won Academy Awards for Best Song and Best Original Score and was the first animated feature ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. This version gave Beauty a name (Belle). The Beast's name, though never mentioned in the movie, was Adam. Also, in this version, the servants have been transformed into personified objects. The story is changed much also in this version. Belle's father is given a name, Maurice, and Belle is his only daughter. A handsome and popular, but boorish, man named Gaston wants to marry Belle so she can be his wife. But she does not want to marry him due to his boorishness, and he and his friends threaten Maurice and the beast, but eventually Gaston is killed during a final confrontation with the beast. It is now considered one of the Walt Disney Company's classic animated films.
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