Sleeping Beauty
A snubbed malevolent fairy casts a curse on a princess that only a prince can break, with the help of three good fairies.
- Director: Clyde Geronimi
- Genre:Animation / Family / Fantasy / Musical / Romance
Cast
Mary Costa : Princess Aurora (voice)
Bill Shirley : Prince Phillip (voice)
Eleanor Audley : Maleficent (voice)
Verna Felton : Flora (voice)
Barbara Luddy : Merryweather (voice)
Official Site:-
Set in the 14th century, the newborn Princess Aurora is named after the Roman goddess of the dawn because she fills the lives of her mother and father, King Stefan and Queen Leah, with sunshine. While still an infant, she is betrothed to the also-young Prince Phillip, son of King Hubert, so that the kingdoms of Stefan and Hubert will be forever united. At her christening, the Three Good Fairies Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather arrive to bless her. Flora gives her the gift of beauty while Fauna gives her the gift of song. Before Merryweather can give her blessing, the wicked fairy Maleficent appears, expressing disappointment in not being invited to Aurora’s christening ceremony and curses the princess to die when she touches a spinning wheel’s spindle before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday. Maleficent leaves, and Merryweather is able to use her blessing to weaken the curse so that instead of death, Aurora will fall into a deep sleep until she is awakened by true love’s kiss. Though King Stefan decrees all spinning wheels in the kingdom burned, the Three Good Fairies know Maleficent’s curse cannot be stopped that easily and devise a plan to protect her. With the king and queen’s consent, they disguise themselves as peasant women and sneak Aurora away with them to a woodland cottage until her sixteen birthday lapses, passing themselves off as her aunts and swearing off magic to conceal themselves.
Years later, Aurora, renamed Briar-Rose, had grown into a gorgeous young woman with the blessings that Flora and Fauna bestowed to her. Sweet and gentle, she dreams of falling in love one day. By that time, Maleficent is vexed at her minions’ incompetence in locating the princess and sends her raven familiar, Diablo, to look for Aurora. On the day of her sixteenth birthday, the fairies attempt to make Aurora a gown and a cake. When their attempts end in disaster they decide to use their wands, resulting in a magical fight between Flora and Merryweather over the color of the gown—Flora insisting that it be pink and Merryweather insisting that it be blue—that catches Diablo’s attention. Meanwhile, Aurora gathers berries while singing to her animal friends, attracting the attention of Prince Phillip, now a handsome young man, as he is out riding his horse in the woods. When they meet, they instantly fall in love, Phillip believing her to be a peasant girl. Realizing that she has to return home, Aurora flees from Phillip without ever learning his name. Despite promising to meet him again, the fairies, not knowing that the man Aurora met is the prince, reveal the truth of her birth to her and take her to her parents and her betrothed’s family insisting that she never see him again, much to her dismay. Meanwhile, Phillip returns home telling his father of a peasant girl he met and wishes to marry in spite of his prearranged marriage to Princess Aurora. Read more
