Sleeping Beauty

King Stefan and King Hubert celebrate the birth of Stefan's infant daughter, Aurora and the betrothal of Hubert's son Phillip to her. The three good fairies, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, are in the midst of bestowing gifts on the princess, when Maleficent, the evil fairy, interrupts.

Furious at having been excluded from the ceremonies, Maleficent curses the child to die on her sixteenth birthday, by the prick of her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel.

Though Merryweather is able to soften the curse, bestowing an enchanted sleep instead of death, Stefan orders the kingdom's spinning wheels burned and sends his daughter into hiding with the three good fairies.

By chance, on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Aurora meets Phillip in the woods, and the two fall in love. At the same time, Maleficent discovers Aurora's whereabouts, captures Prince Phillip, and entices Aurora to a remote castle tower, where she pricks her finger and falls into the magic sleep. Phillip defeats and destroys Maleficent and wakes the princess Aurora with true love's kiss.

Briar Rose/Princess Aurora, Prince Phillip, Samson, King Stefan, Queen, King Hubert, Fauna, Flora, Merryweather, Maleficent, Diablo, Dragon

Sleeping Beauty was the first major film to earn more on video than in theatrical release. Its first million video sales earned Disney $19.5 million (compared with $15.8 million in North American film rentals).

Walt Disney spent nine years and a then-exorbitant $6 million to make the film.

First Disney feature film to be shot in 70mm; also had a stereophonic soundtrack.

VHS release was done in pan-and scan method, losing 1/3 of the frame.

This film marked Taylor Holmes' last screen appearance; he died eight months after it's release.

This was the 16th film in the official Disney list of animated films.

Sleeping Beauty was photographed in Technirama. This was an adaptation of the VistaVision process introduced by Paramount. Like VistaVision, the standard 35mm film traveled in a horizontal path through the camera, exposing a frame that was 8-perforations wide.... but the wrinkle that makes it different is that the photography was done with an anamorphic lens for a 1.5x squeeze... so where standard VistaVision was shown at 1.66 or 1.85, Technirama was then printed for first runs as "Super Technirama 70", which meant 70mm projection prints with an aspect ratio 2.55:1.

The "technicolor" in the credit was simply contractual, as they were the lab developing negative and making (Eastmancolor) release prints.... though the 35mm CinemaScope prints (cropped to 2.35) would have been made in 1959 by dye-transfer.

And to make it really interesting, the camera photography, like all Disney animation of the period, was photographed as color separations on Black & White negative film stock by the Successive Exposure process (each single color frame that you see on screen is in fact a "triple exposure" of the three successive frames of negative, first a red exposure, then a green and blue).

Courtesy of Scott MacQueen

Academy Award Nominee, Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture, 1959