La Belle et la Bete (Beauty and the Beast) (1946)

This is a French film which begins with this quote, "Children believe what we tell them. They have complete faith in us. They believe that a rose plucked from a garden can plunge a family into conflict. They believe that the hands of a human beast will smoke when he slays a victim, and that this will cause him shame when a young maiden takes up residence in his home. They believe a thousand other simple things. I ask of you a little of this childlike sympathy and, to bring us luck, let me speak four truly magic words, childhood's "Open Sesame": Once upon a time..." I found this movie on www.youtube.com and started showing my four year old daughter it. I was reading her the subtitles and about five minutes into it she asked me why they weren't singing...I have failed. This is essentially the Disney story that we have all grown to love. Critics such as Roger Ebert claim this to be one of the greatest movies of all time; Empire magazine listed it as number 26 of the top 100 world cinemas of all times. Me, I felt it could have been better considering the magic of The Wizard of Oz came out seven years before this. This was a fun watch with my daughter, but that is the only memory I am taking from it.