Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful
Review: This is a beautiful version of the "Beauty and the Beast" fairy tale. Cocteau creates a dreamlike world of fantasy and illusion. There are two versions of the film available on this disk - one with spoken words and one with opera singing. Both are French, subtitled in English. I watched this movie twice in one evening - once with the spoken dialogue, once with the opera track. I was enchanted by the beauty of the story, and the black and white picture adds to the mystery. This is a film that I would watch again and again.
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Summary: "True Experience Must Be Unique." - Cocteau
Review: Beauty and the Beast is based on Madame de Beaumont's fairy tale with the same name, and Cocteau's adaptation is strikingly alike the original with a few exceptions. The story begins with Cocteau explaining himself in the beginning of the film with a small statement in regards to children and their naiveté and then the film opens as most fairy tales do with, "Once upon a time..." The father is raising one son, Ludovic, and three daughters, Felicie, Adelaide, and Belle (translated to Beauty) by himself. Felicie and Adelaide are the malicious daughters that openly expresses their greed, sloth, and envy as they hurt Belle. The son brings the family to the brink of poverty as he loses the family's furniture and valuables in a gambling debt. On the way home from attempting to settle the debt, the father gets lost in a storm and he finds what seems to be a deserted magical castle. In the morning when the father gets ready to leave the castle he finds a rose and remembers that Belle's wish was to receive a rose, however, the Beast appears and expresses his dislike for theft of the rose and tells him that he must pay with his life or the life of a daughter. When Belle finds out she caused her father this anguish she voluntarily gives herself to the Beast. Beauty and the Beast is a fairy tale that teaches lessons as stories should, and there are several lessons worth learning in this magnificent adaptation by Cocteau. The special effects in the film enhance the magic as Cocteau presents his vision of Madame de Beaumont's fairy tale. Overall, the supreme realism which is observed in the Beast's humanity is a major factor in the films influence of a brilliant cinematic experience. As Jean Cocteau stated in his essay of his own film, Beauty and the Beast, "I have tried to give you something of what led me into an experience that I shall not repeat, because true experience must be unique. I can only compare it once again to the casting forth of a seed, which falls on favorable or unfavorable ground, blowing where it will." Hence, Beauty and the Beast is truly a unique cinematic experience.
Rating:
Summary: Charming
Review: Sterling DVD release of a movie that only a heart of stone would dislike; certainly a must-have for Cocteau admirers.
Rating:
Summary: Breath-taking
Review: Cocteau's beautiful, poetic and visually stunning re-telling of Beauty and the Beast is an enchanting fairytale for grown-ups. Its gorgeous images - hands as candalabras lighting the way into the Beast's castle, statues that blink and move their heads - evoke all the magic and the darkness that you will recall from reading or hearing these stories as a child. It is superbly, richly rendered - much more engaging, and also much more adult - than the more recent Disney animated version that attempts to recreate some of its baroque images but contains none of its charm, or its atmosphere. This is one of the first major French productions of the post-war era. Cocteau had a lot of weight on his shoulders; he needed to make a film that showed the French cinema could survive, a film that needed to be artistically valid but also engage with an audience. People thought La Belle et la Bete was an odd choice of material, but the director pulls it off magnificently, presenting an ambitious, sumptuous entertainment, with winningly surreal touches. A beautiful, mesmerising masterpiece that combines great storytelling with unique, breath-taking images.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding print
Review: The print is outstanding, the restoration they did on this is nothing short of magnificent. Watch it with music and subtitles (my favorite) or listen to it sung in opera. Either way, no one can ever out do this the way it was filmed years ago. Can't believe the special effects they had then. Costuming is also first rate. Can't say enough about this movie and the dvd edition. I saw the earlier version criterion had and this one jumps all over it. You would think it was filmed today the way it is cleaned up.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, But Not Magical
Review: I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I preferred the animated Disney version of this story to the 1946 Jean Cocteau film. I'm no Disney fan, and I would personally like to stop them from taking over the world (along with Starbucks), but this is one case where I just thought they instilled this fairy tale with more magic. I missed the character of Gaston in the Cocteau version, and I missed also the delightful assortment of animated objects. And I think this story is particularly conducive to being set to music, and I enjoyed the songs in the Disney version. However, on its own terms, the 1946 release is well done, and considered by many to be the definitive version of the beauty/beast tale. I thought the acting was bland, though Belle is indeed a beauty. And there are moments of pure movie magic: the candelabras that light Belle's way, the fireplace that watches her father eat. And for once slow motion is used in a way that doesn't feel cliche. But the relationship between Belle and the Beast isn't well developed. You don't see Belle falling in love with him over the course of the film, and when she professes her love at the end, it seems to come out of thin air. And was I the only one confused by the transformation at the end? It doesn't get explained well at all. Though it is kind of funny at how blase Belle is when the Beast becomes a hunk and says she'll have to get used to his new face. The film is interesting in that it acknowledges the Beast's animalistic nature. He hunts wild game, he craves blood, and more than once you wonder whether or not he'd rather eat Belle than court her. There's a violent eroticism underlying this film, that I found surprising for the year it was released. I know Cocteau asks his audience at the film's beginning to watch the film with the eyes of a child and to give itself over to the enchantment of fairy tales, and I have no problem doing that. But even so, I felt like he was using fairy tale logic to explain away things that could have been explained better. Grade: B
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Summary: The 2002 Criterion DVD is a stunning production
Review: I previously reviewed Jean Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST based on the earlier Criterion DVD, but I was just given the 2002 reissue as a gift, and I have to say that I am simply stunned at how good this disc is. It is so superior to the previous DVD that I heartily recommend anyone owning any earlier editions to sell what they have and get this new version. The film itself has been restored to pristine condition, in the best Criterion tradition. The original soundtrack has been cleaned up to the greatest extent possible, though it does not compare well to modern films. One of the unfortunate marks of English and continental filmmaking in the thirties and forties was the fact that their sound technology was several years behind what was being done in Hollywood, and it was only in the 1950s that they largely caught up. The sound in this film, therefore, does not compare to the best in Hollywood, though visually the film stands comparison with any period. The greatest thing about the audio tracks on this new DVD is the ease with which one can switch from the original soundtrack to the Philip Glass opera composed to accompanying the film to either of two commentaries. This DVD is so stuffed with goodies that one wonders how it all fits on a single DVD. You get documentaries, trailers of various sorts, the text of the tale the movie was based upon, the two aforementioned commentaries, and the magnificent Philip Glass opera. To be honest, the Philip Glass opera is so spectacular that it would have justified the purchase price of the disc. To have it included as a mere extra is extraordinary indeed. I have several Criterion discs, and all are enormously impressive, but I have to say that this may be my favorite disc that they have yet put out. We hear a great deal about piracy these days, but if the various media corporations would concentrate on quality products like this they would have less to complain about. I still think the price is a tad high, but I will say that the quality of the disc at least makes one feel that their asking price is justified. A favorite moment: Beauty has left the Beast to visit her father and family, but dawdles for longer than she agreed upon. The Beast, to encourage her to return, sends her his mirror. She looks into it and sees her face, beautiful and reposed. The surface of the mirror changes to that of the Beast, in great agony. His face fades, to reveal her face again, only now pained and dismayed. In a movie with dozens of marvelous moments this is one of my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: Sublime
Review: Movies just don't get any better than this Cocteau masterpiece. The film, especially the scenes in the Beast's palace, overflow with a dreamlike quality that is positively spellbinding. The imagery and creativity put to work by Cocteau and company should be used as textbook examples of how to create astonishing magic with restraint. Criterion's restoration is, as always, beyond reproach. This production company is, arguably, the finest in the business. The images are crisp and clean and so beautifully touched up that the entire film has a fantastic sheen normally attributed to Hurrell and Richie glamour shots of the 20's and 30's. In my opinion, the seductive qualities of "La Belle et la Bete" have yet to be replicated in any other film. There have been many fantastic movies made since "Beauty" but none really come close to matching Cocteau's brilliance and sense of cinematic wonderment. A must have for lovers of cinema. For me, this is a desert island DVD along with "Cries and Whispers," "Brief Encounter" and "Nights of Cabiria" all of which just happen to be part of the Criterion Collection.
Rating:
Summary: Simply some of the finest cinema ever made!
Review: If you're considering buying any one item here, you have just found it. This is quite simply one of the top five films ever made, combining such a lyrical reading of the story, memorable acting and special effects that couldn't be better illustrated in any other context. It is as if Cocteau is holding a wand.
Rating:
Summary: SKIN DEEP.....................
Review: Indeed! This is the 'ultimate' version of the fable created by the legendary Jean Cocteau and starring Jean Marais as you know who ...... The restoration is magnificent, crisp, pristine images and lots of required extras on this version including the Philip Glass score [absolutely a double-plus]. It's a dreamy, semi-nightmarish vision - never quite duplicated [copied?] by Hollywood ~ and light-years ahead of its time. Superior and expertly detailed costume and set design. Forget the cartoon version - silly bland fare by comparison.
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