Beauty and the Beast Concept Art Disney
La Belle et la Bete
So as I’ve mentioned several times Disney takes older movies and re-makes them with their sacchrine Disney stamp. Aladdin is based off of the Theif of Baghdad 1924 and1940 and The Thief And The Cobbler. Beauty and the Beast based is off of La Belle et La Bete, though Belle is based off of Hepburn’s portayle of Jo from Little Women . And Be Our Guest uses Gustav Mahler’s Symphonie 3 First Movement for the melody. And of course Disney is based Hunchback off of the 1939 version of Hunchback of Notre Dame with slight hints made to the Lon Chaney version in 1923. However Disney will never admit to doing this instead they do the opposite. In the DVD audio commentary, Directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise and Producer Don Hahn basically criticize the 1939 version and the 1923 version. They claim that these two movies have made Quasimodo into a monster. While Lon Chaney’s version is consider to be horror, it is not, Chaney is not the horrific monster that commentary paints him as. And as Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo well Disney’s Quasimodo is far more monstrous.
Singin’ in the Rain meets King Kong Shot
Reverse King Kong Shot Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
It makes me more than a little angry that Disney uses these sources but in an commentary they debase them and then they discuss other movies that they took inspiration from Like King Kong and Singin’ in the Rain . They also mention Minster Toad’s Wide Ride and Fantasia in relation to Hellfire. It’s just annoying the way the directors and producer go on about how the brought a sense of humanity to Quasimodo that the old Hollywood failed to do.
Next Time – Conclusions
Phoebus, Quasimodo, Esmeralda Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame