It's true that a bit of the film's impact has been diluted by its significant influence both within its genre and without; but the original is still a special thing, a beautiful hallucination.
Comment
06/17/08
Beauty and the Beast (1946)
95
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:42
Fresh:40
Rotten:2
Average Rating:8.6/10
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: Visionary filmmaker and poet Jean Cocteau responded to the terrors and creative constraints of occupied France with this elaborately realized take on the classic fairy tale BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.... [More]
Starring: Jean Marais, Josette Day, Marcel Andre, Mila Parely
Director: Jean Cocteau
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Reviews for Beauty and the Beast
Lovely.
06/14/08
Cocteau didn't just interpret a fairy tale with this black-and-white wonder, but re-created a fairy-tale world.
06/08/07
Has lost none of its power to amaze and enthrall. And this magical adaptation of the much-filmed Jean-Marie Leprince de Beaumont tale clearly inspired much of the imagery for the Disney version.
06/07/07
It sets the benchmark in elegance for such fantasy films.
11/24/06
By conjuring up ... fairy-tale trappings, then aiming it all at adults, Beauty and the Beast reminds us that motion pictures can tap into our childlike fears and pleasures without becoming childish in the process.
04/05/06
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02/11/06
Top CriticNo review available.
07/17/05
French director Jean Cocteau's enchanting, heartbreakingly beautiful surrealist version [is the best of all].
05/24/05
No review available.
05/12/05
No review available.
06/04/04
Littering his film with wonderfully evocative shots of steam rising off of the simmering Beast, Jean Cocteau accentuates his seething animal intensity.
03/03/04
No review available.
08/22/03
Elegant and mesmerizing.
07/25/03
A rich and vivid telling of the classic story under the elegant direction of Jean Cocteau.
07/11/03
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05/20/03
Top CriticThe film is invaluable as a piece of history, but it hasn't stood the test of time.
02/28/03
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02/27/03
This version of the familiar fairy tale has long been revered for its dreamlike state, which continues to mesmerize even in this age of $100 million computer-generated effects.
02/19/03
As Cocteau properly retains in his diary of the film’s making, Beauty and the Beast has the structure of a poem, its inherent ambiguity, moral narrative, and visual emphasis.
02/11/03
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