February 7, 2021
Sleeping Beauty (1959) ****
Secret Movie Club Drive-In
$49 (double feature with Cinderella)
Disney animation
“Now, Father, you’re living in the past, this is the 14th century!”
Unlike most of these other Disney animated features where I keep saying, “I know I’ve seen this 1 million times… but possibly… not since the 1970s?” I know exactly when I last saw Sleeping Beauty, because that was around the time I started keeping track of when I saw Disney animated features! I have a list on my phone that is even up-to-date and stuff, go me.
I saw Sleeping Beauty last at the 70mm movie series at the Academy, on 7/16/12. It was extremely lovely in 70mm, but seeing it on the drive-in movie screen was entirely comparable.
This film is really special as far as animation goes, such clean sweeping lines, such interesting angles, and the voice work is impeccable. There are a lot of familiar voices from other Disney films of the era, like Eleanor Audley, who also played the Wicked Stepmother in Cinderella in the first half of this double feature, and Verna Felton, the voice of Flora and the Fairy Godmother, not to mention the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. Barbara Luddy plays Merryweather, as well as Lady in Lady and the Tramp, and Kanga in Winnie-the-Pooh, and Bill Thompson played King Hubert (Prince Phillip’s father), Smee in Peter Pan, and the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.
I think this is one of the reasons that the Disney animated films of the ’50s and ’60s are so comforting, not just because we grew up with them, but because of the wonderful company of voice actors that would appear over and over again, it made them all feel like home.
365 Films in 365 Days 