Sleeping Beauty

Disney's animated feature film, "Sleeping Beauty" premiered at the Fox Wilshire Theater in Los Angeles January 29, 1959. The story is based on the fairy tale "La Belle au bois dormant" by Charles Perrault, while much of the musical score is based on Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "Sleeping Beauty." (It will be nominated for an Oscar for Best Music/Scoring of a Musical Picture.) Sleeping Beauty is also the first animated feature to be photographed in the Technirama widescreen process (an alternative to CinemaScope) and the last Disney feature to use hand-inked cels.