While everyone flocks to theaters to witness the live-action Disney remake of their own 1991 animated hit Beauty and the Beast, this time starring Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Kevin Kline, Josh Gad, and gads more actors, it seems like a nice opportunity to take a look at how a timeless tale of a bookish girl falling in love with a creepy monster transcends any one interpretation. Since the French fairy tale by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve was first published in 1740, then edited into a more popular version that proliferated at the end of the 1800s, La Belle et la Bête has been a fertile source for film and television adaptations.
So here’s a quick glimpse of nine other versions -- and before you ask, no, we won’t even bother with the ’91 Disney movie, nor will we deal with the larger world of thematic adaptations (everything from the various versions of King Kong to something like Edward Scissorhands). Let’s look at some other interesting permutations, with an admittedly perfunctory rating of the relative “beastliness” of the Beast in each version…
Director: Jean Cocteau
Cast: Josette Day, Jean Marais
Beastliness Rating of the Beast: 3/5
For any kids of a certain generation that grew up reading monster movie books, the sight of Marais in his full cat-like beast makeup (designed by Hagop Arakelian) is an indelible image that may seem a bit simplistic or even silly today. But never mind that, it’s stunning for the time, and the atmosphere of this adaptation remains a benchmark that echoes into future incarnations of the fairy tale, including one later in this list.
Director: Lev Atamanov
Cast: Mikhail Astangov, Victoria Ivanova
Beastliness Rating of the Beast: 3/5
Since we disallowed the Disney animated movie from 1991, how about this Russian animated adaptation of a story by Sergey Aksakov, which was itself a variation on the original de Villeneuve fairy tale? This lush, atmospheric piece features rotoscoped animation and some stunning colors, but it’s slow-moving and short at just a little over 40 minutes.
Director: Edward L. Cahn
Cast: Joyce Taylor, Mark Damon
Beastliness Rating of the Beast: 4/5
Did you know Universal’s own monster maker, Jack Pierce, designed another werewolf long after Lon Chaney stalked the screen as Larry Talbot? It’s nothing to be excited about, though, as sadly the aging Pierce created a big-nosed laugh of a creature that fails to shock or delight. Cahn’s other work included some B-movie gems like Zombies of Mora Tau, It! The Terror from Beyond Space, and Invisible Invaders. This was the last movie for Pierce and Cahn, a shame on both counts.
Director: Fielder Cook
Cast: George C. Scott, Patricia Van Devere
Beastliness Rating of the Beast: 4/5
This 1976 Hallmark Hall of Fame TV-movie is pretty obscure by today’s standards, but anyone that saw it then at an impressionable age may hold it as highly as the Cocteau version, if not more so. Scott’s Emmy-nominated performance was enhanced by a truly distinctive boar-like makeup design created by a team of legends including Del Acevedo, Dan Striepeke, and Planet of the Apes’ John Chambers (who created similar boar and other animal looks one year later for the 1977 Island of Dr. Moreau).
Director: Roger Vadim
Cast: Klaus Kinski, Susan Sarandon
Beastliness Rating of the Beast: 3/5
Sarandon wants to be touch-a touch-a touched by Kinski’s beast in this pretty stylish take on the story. If you were a child of the ’80s, you saw some fantastic fairy tale adaptations on this early HBO cable anthology series, produced and hosted by Shelley Duvall. While most remember the Little Red Riding Hood episode with Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen, this one has its supporters, especially because it tips its hat directly to the 1946 Cocteau version with a faithful re-creation of the original film’s makeup design.
Director: Various
Cast: Ron Perlman, Linda Hamilton
Beastliness Rating of the Beast: 2/5
Although this goes pretty far afield of the original source material, crafting a character-driven saga that gave Perlman his best role until Hellboy and Hamilton something to do between Terminator films, the TV series is Beauty and the Beast for anyone as devoted to the show as its fans surely are. Although Vincent’s look was definitely beastly, the soft cat-like contours did become familiar and even comforting in time; maybe it was that silky-smooth voice. Controversy erupted when Hamilton left at the end of the second season, forcing the show to replace her and do lasting damage to its ongoing storyline. At its height, the show roped in romantics on a weekly basis and also offered some excellent mythology-building plots for those inclined toward fantasy and action. A 2012 reboot actually outlasted its predecessor by one season.
Director: Ken Kwapis
Cast: Timothy Dalton, Fran Drescher
Beastliness Rating of the Beast: 0/5
The Nanny teams up with James Bond for a by-the-numbers rom-com that also borrows liberally from classic romantic musical fare like The Sound of Music and The King and I. If you’re the sort to enjoy the occasional fluffy flight of fantasy with a clash of cultures leading to a happily-ever-after ending, this is a thoroughly inoffensive, even pleasant way to pass the time. Also featuring Ian McNeice, who appeared as Winston Churchill in several episodes of Doctor Who (if you need a sci-fi reason to tune in).
Director: Mark Palansky
Cast: Christina Ricci, James McAvoy
Beastliness Rating of the Beast: 1/5
It wasn’t easy to find a good gender-swapped version of the classic story, but this film fits the bill, with Wednesday Addams herself sporting piggy features -- specifically her nose and ears -- until she finds love with Professor X… well, sort of anyway. If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, you’ll also catch Peter Dinklage in this unusual take on the Beauty and Beast dynamic, but come on, really -- you’re going to turn Christina Ricci away just because of a little pig nose?
Director: Daniel Barnz
Cast: Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudgens
Beastliness Rating of the Beast: 1/5
Didn’t you always want to see the classic fairy tale translated to a modern high school with roles for Neil Patrick Harris and Mary-Kate Olsen? Of course you did! By beastly standards, Pettyfer’s heavily-inked and silverized look isn’t nearly as monstrous as in most other versions -- he looks like a bargain version of Tom Hardy’s Shinzon from Star Trek: Nemesis!
Of course there are tons of other film, television, literary, and even video game and more incidental adaptations of this venerable tale as old as time. Which ones are your favorites? Sound off in the comments!
Find Arnold T. Blumberg on Twitter at @DoctoroftheDead.
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