The French Origin of Disney’s Fairy Tale Films
by Beth Keating
Disney, France & the Olympics
July 31, 2024
(Please subscribe today!)
With the Summer Olympics in full swing in Paris, France, we started talking the other evening of the French origin of many of Disney’s films, particularly some of their animated classics. Actually, the conversation began with Disney’s use of IP, rather than original stories for their movies and rides, and the acknowledgement that from the very early days, Disney wasn’t shy about “repurposing” ideas from other places. But I digress…
(Photos courtesy of D23.com)
From the very beginning, Walt Disney was “borrowing” story concepts from fairy tales he’d heard as a child. In fact, the world’s very first full-length animated feature was Walt’s 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a German fairy tale he’d seen performed as a youngster. The story originally came from the 1812 Grimms’ Fairy Tales, a book of much (much) darker stories than Disney’s reinventions. The Grimm Brothers’ book, like many fairy tales from the days of yore, were meant to be cautionary tales for kids, not entertainment for entertainment’s sake, and as such, bad things often happened! Sometimes really bad!
That discussion got us thinking: How many of Disney’s “borrowed” tales have had French origins over the years? We came up with a longer list than we’d thought, and with some digging, we’d probably unearth a few more if we went further back. But here’s our list so far:
1) The most obvious choice would be 1991’s Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et La Bête.) Lumiere even sings, “After all, Miss, this is France!” Belle’s “tale as old as time” takes place in a small village in the French countryside.
Disney animator Glen Keane and his team are credited with scouting the French Chateau Chambord as the stand-in for their animated version of Beast’s castle.
Though some variations on the tale are thousands of years old, the original tale is thought to come from a 1740’s story by a French writer named Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, though, like most of these fairy tales, there are numerous versions with different spins on the story floating around. Villeneuve’s version only loosely resembles the outline of Disney’s tale, and instead of being the daughter of a small town inventor, Belle is the daughter of a King, and it is Belle (Beauty) who turns the prince into the beast!
According to Story Time Magazine, the story was then rewritten (around 1757) by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, who came up with the version that is much closer to the Disney tale we know and love, though once again it isn’t a direct one-for-one correspondence. Incidentally, if you want to read Leprince de Beaumont’s version, Amazon has copies available of the Beauty and the Beast—La Belle et la Bête English-French Parallel Text Edition. (DisneyBizJournal does not get any compensation for this book – we just thought you might find it interesting.)
Storytime also credits the French director Jean Cocteau with bringing Beauty and the Beast to film in 1946, decades before Disney’s 1991 adaptation.
Disney took another crack at the story in 2017 with the live action Beauty and the Beast, with such stars as Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Ewan McGregor and Emma Thompson, among quite a few other big names. It also made its way to Broadway as a Tony winning theatrical production (1994-2007), with 5,461 performances. There were a couple of direct-to-video entries in the franchise as well.
2) One of the older films we thought of is La Belle au Bois Dormant, or Sleeping Beauty, with the original story, The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods, recounted by French author Charles Perrault in his 1697 collection of fairy tales, which included Cinderella. The tale of Sleeping Beauty is believed, however, to be based on a French story called Perceforest from the 1300’s. Disney, in the opening frames of the 1959 animated film, for the story adaptation, credits “the Charles Perrault version of Sleeping Beauty,” and under the musical selections, notes that it is “adapted from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Sleeping Beauty Ballet’.”
The story always confused my pre-school students, because the princess has three different names. She is either Sleeping Beauty, Princess Aurora, or Briar Rose, depending on the version of the tale and the original author. To make matters more confusing, Disney uses all three in the same movie! (If you want a good laugh, eavesdrop on a bunch of four-year-olds arguing about what the princess’s name really is in the movie!)
In his ballet, Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky calls her "Aurora." If you are calling out for "Briar Rose," you’ll have to go to the Brothers Grimm fairy tale (or she’s also sometimes “Rosamund” there). Disney dubbed her Princess Aurora before she went into hiding, and her witness protection name became Briar Rose when she was living with the well-meaning but bumbling good fairies.
Aurora’s tale gets retold yet again in Disney’s 2014 Maleficent and 2019’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil live action versions, told from the villain’s point of view this time, and helmed by Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning.
If you need more convincing of the tale’s French origins, the castle at Disneyland Paris is Sleeping Beauty Castle, or as they say, Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant. Its stunning stained glass windows tell Aurora’s story in La Galerie de la Belle au Bois Dormant inside the castle. On its website, Disneyland Paris says, “… the 167-foot structure invokes both the magic and mystery of fictional palaces like the one seen in Disney's animated classic Sleeping Beauty, as well as elements from real French castles and historic monuments.”
All that being said, some viewers argue that Sleeping Beauty is set in England in the Disney animation due to the building styles, though the film itself doesn’t specifically state that. The story is of French origin, but you could also argue some Germanic influence because of the Brothers Grimm inclusion of the story. (We don’t like their dark, dark, dark versions anyway.). Oh, and Tchaikovsky? He was Russian.
3) Cinderella, also known as “Cendrillon” in French, has literally hundreds of versions, in many different languages and cultures. Back when I taught Middle School English, it was fun to take a week during the “Fairy Tales” unit, and assign each student the Cinderella story in a different version, and have them come back in and do a “compare and contrast” with their classmates. There was never a shortage of versions to go around. One of the most well-known versions was by French author Charles Perrault in 1697, Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre (Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper). His was one of the earliest versions in print. Walt Disney’s 1950 version was its first, but not its last. There was also a 2015 live action remake directed by Kenneth Branagh, and a series of animated cartoons over the years, extending portions of Cindy’s story.
4) The Aristocats (1970) is a new favorite of the grandkids in our life, though it was created before any of their parents were even born. There’s no doubt this movie takes place in France when you see the kitties traversing the rooftops of 1910s Paris, complete with Eiffel Tower in the background. Tiny fluff balls Toulouse and Berlioz? Named after French artists! (And let’s not forget the pups, “Napoleon” and “Lafayette.”) French singer and actor Maurice Chevalier worked with the Sherman Brothers to create and sing the theme song. (It would be the last of his films before he died in 1972.) The first words to the film are even, “Which pet’s address is the finest in Paris?” and part of the title song is performed in French. Stalwart alley cat Abraham DeLacey Giuseppe Casey Thomas O’Malley spends the film helping to get the feline family home to their Paris mansion. So, while not a fairy tale in origin, Aristocats is said to be based on a true story of a very fortunate set of cats who lived the high life, and were well-provided for in their master’s will.
5) How could we not mention Ratatouille, where anyone can cook! In 2007’s Ratatouille, Paris itself almost becomes a character in the story. It’s hard to imagine the tale taking place anywhere else. Remy gets lost in the sewer underneath Paris. His family uses the sewers as their underground transportation highway, and the skylines out of the apartment windows scream “Paris!” If you ride Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, the dialogue is even split between French and English. Not based on a fairy tale, but so obviously a “French” flavored tale (get it?) that we had to add it to the list.
And while the following entries didn’t start out as fairy tales, per se, here are a few more Disney films that we’ve unearthed that take place in France, based on a French novel:
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) was an obvious choice for French origins. It takes place at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and Notre Dame is so central to the story that when the cathedral was ravaged by a fire in 2019, Disney ponied up $5 million to help with the reconstruction process. According to Notre Dame, 340,000 people from 150 countries have pledged $895 million of the estimated $760 reconstruction cost. (And on a personal note, I still miss the Hollywood Studios live action stage show of the Hunchback from back in the day – with its lively music and confetti falling from the ceiling. So fun! Pretty sure its buried under Galaxy’s Edge somewhere, but I am directionally challenged, so that might be a bit off.). Disney’s version of the Hunchback is, indeed, a lot more fun than the original, darker version by French author Victor Hugo. In Hugo’s novel, Esmeralda was hanged.
• The Three Musketeers is a 1993 live action film from Walt Disney Pictures and Caravan Pictures, based on the 1844 novel The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) by French author Alexandre Dumas. The story is set in 1625 France, with the valiant D'Artagnan heading to Paris in hopes of becoming one of the Musketeers, a brotherhood sworn to serve and protect the King of France. The film was filled with lots of big names, including Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, Oliver Platt, Tim Curry, and Rebecca De Mornay (and it’s available on Disney+). All for one, and one for all! (While this version was brought to you courtesy of Disney, Dumas’ story is so popular that it keeps getting remade over and over again, beginning first with the Douglas Fairbanks’ silent film version in 1921, to a Luke Evans version in 2011, to a recent two-part epic version in 2023.)
If animation is more your thing, a more comedic 2004 direct-to-video movie based on The Three Musketeers was titled Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers. For you Disney history buffs, Wayne Allwine is the voice of Mickey in this outing, and Minnie is voiced by Russi Taylor. Its short run time (68 minutes) means you can squeeze it in between Olympic events. It’s currently on Disney+. Catch the “goofy” janitors as they try to become heroes.
Not enough time to read Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 novel? Disney put out a 32 page comic book version in cooperation with Gemstone Publishing, coinciding with Mickey’s DVD.
Here’s one that only the most dedicated Disney fans among you may have seen – unless you are into old(er) movies.
• The 1962 academy award nominated film Bon Voyage, featuring the very first Disney Legend, Fred MacMurray, and President Reagan’s first wife, Jane Wyman, takes an Indiana family on a French vacation full of culture shock and humorous mishaps (and perhaps, for the time period, a bit of a risqué storyline). The Willard family (Harry, Katie and their three kids) leaves for a European vacation, but ends up with tours of Paris sewers, the French Riviera, and offspring falling in love across the ocean. It is currently available only on DVD. Sorry, Disney+ subscribers.
And to wrap up today:
• The 2000 live action 102 Dalmatians starring Glenn Close makes a pitstop in Paris on her quest to gather more spotted puppies. The connection to the fairy tale twist here? Like many fairy tales of old, Cruella gets her “just desserts” by getting baked into a cake in the end of the film, just before being arrested by the French police. Shades of Big, Bad Wolf and Hansel and Gretel, perhaps?
• Cars 2 has a few scenes that take place in Paris during the World Grand Prix. We’ll let you decide if this is technically a “French-based” movie… But while we are on the subject of cars – The 1977 Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo takes the loveable little Volkswagen Beetle on a trip to the French Riviera in Monaco. Close enough? Non?
__________
Beth Keating is a theme parks, restaurant and entertainment reporter for DisneyBizJournal.
Get The Disney Planner: The TO DO List Solution by Ray Keating. More information at
https://raykeatingbooksandmore.com/shop/ols/products/disneyplanner. A PDF version is available here.
