Beauty and the Beast (1987) – Review

By the 1980s, Beauty and the Beast had already been adapted so many times that the story was basically on autopilot. Naturally, Cannon Films looked at that pile of versions and thought, “Yes, what this needs is a budget that barely covers catering and a dream.” The result is the 1987 entry in their Cannon Movie Tales series, a film that exists somewhere between earnest fairy tale and something you’d accidentally tape over with a hockey game.

We begin with a wealthy merchant living the good life with his sons Oliver (Joseph Bee) and Frederick (Jack Messinger), and his daughters Bettina (Carmela Marner), Isabella (Ruth Harlap), and the ever-patient Beauty (Rebecca De Mornay). Beauty is less a daughter and more a full-time domestic support system, keeping the entire family functioning while they lounge around like decorative furniture. She doesn’t resent it, which either makes her a saint or someone who hasn’t yet discovered the concept of boundaries.

“Someday I’ll be a fairy tale princess, and you can all suck it.”

Then fate, or possibly a screenwriter with a checklist, sends the merchant’s fortune into a tailspin after a series of financial calamities. The family relocates to the countryside, where Beauty continues doing literally everything while the others perfect the art of being useless. When word arrives that a ship might have survived, the merchant promises lavish gifts. Beauty, in a rare moment of modesty, asks for a single rose, which turns out to be the most expensive flower in cinema history.

“I’ll give you an offer you can’t refuse.”

On his way home empty-handed, the merchant stumbles into a castle that offers free room service with a side of ominous vibes. He helps himself to a rose because, apparently, he learned nothing about consequences, and is promptly confronted by the Beast (John Savage), who demands Beauty in exchange. The merchant agrees with shocking speed, and Beauty is shipped off like a polite hostage, where she discovers that magical conveniences abound and her new roommate mostly communicates through awkward dinner proposals and emotional neediness.

“Fair warning, I’m totally into Stockholm Syndrome.”

Life at the castle settles into a routine: dinner, rejection, dream sequences featuring a mystery prince, repeat. Beauty grows fond of the Beast because proximity and narrative necessity are powerful forces. After visiting her family, where she finds that her siblings have gone back to being selfish pricks, she returns late to find the Beast dramatically dying. Realizing she loves him just in time to save the runtime, she accepts his proposal, breaks the curse, and transforms him into the prince from her dreams. Cue fireworks, transformation, magical reunions, and the film sprinting to the finish line before anyone asks too many questions.

Is it me, or does the Prince look to be rethinking marriage?

Strays Observations:

• The merchant trades his daughter for a flower and somehow remains the “good parent” in the story. Standards were different, apparently.
• Beauty’s entire family forgets how to function without her, then magically learns independence the second she leaves. Convenient personal growth is the best kind.
• The Beast asks “Will you marry me?” every night like he’s stuck in a very specific loop of emotional torture.
• Beauty falls in love with a guy she barely interacts with outside of dinner and existential dread.
• Time moves differently in the castle, which is less a plot device and more a screenwriter shrugging.
• The magical castle provides anything Beauty wants, yet she still spends most of her time looking vaguely bored.
• The reveal that the Beast is the prince from her dreams lands with all the surprise of a neon sign flashing “PLOT TWIST.” Basically, for this to work, Beauty has to be pretty dim.
• The Beast owns a golden mechanical bird that looks suspiciously like Bubo from Clash of the Titans, if Bubo had been assembled from leftover parts and mild disappointment.

“I bet I could get good money for this on eBay.”

This film sits comfortably inside the Cannon Movie Tales experiment, a well-intentioned but financially shaky attempt by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus to crank out fairy tales for a younger audience. They planned sixteen films, which is adorable optimism considering Cannon’s habit of spending money like it was a myth. The series stopped at nine when their adaptation of Rumpelstiltskin flopped, leaving the rest to quietly slip onto video shelves where they could do less damage.

“I walked with you…once upon a dream.”

Director Eugene Marner deserves some credit for trying to wring atmosphere out of what was clearly a limited production, though he’s fighting an uphill battle the entire time. There are moments where the film almost convinces you it has a mood, particularly in the castle scenes, but it never quite escapes the gravitational pull of its budget, and it certainly isn’t helped by a collection of songs so uninspired they feel like contractual obligations rather than storytelling. Cinematographer Avraham Karpick does what he can, which mostly results in visuals that resemble a mid-tier television special.

“Tonight, on a very special episode of Punky Brewster.”

The cast is a mixed bag, leaning heavily toward “trying their best under the circumstances.” Rebecca De Mornay brings a gentle sincerity to Beauty, though she also spends a surprising amount of the film looking quietly confused, as if she’s just as unsure about what’s happening as the audience. That sincerity still helps anchor things when everything around her looks like it was assembled over a weekend. John Savage, meanwhile, has the unenviable task of playing the Beast, buried under makeup and forced to oscillate between menace and wounded vulnerability. He gives it effort, but the material doesn’t exactly meet him halfway, leaving him stranded somewhere between tragic figure and confused dinner guest. The only real upside is that the makeup itself is quite impressive.

Kudos to makeup designers Deborah Eastwood and John Price.

In the grand lineup of Beauty and the Beast adaptations, this one sits in an odd middle ground, and its timing didn’t do it any favours either. It arrived alongside the television series starring Ron Perlman as the Beast and Linda Hamilton as Beauty, which rather brutally highlighted what a difference resources, writing, and actual atmosphere can make. Needless to say, one of these is still talked about with genuine affection, and the other is… this. Which ends up as a curious footnote, a product of Cannon’s particular brand of ambition-meets-budget-reality. It’s not the worst version, which might be the most backhanded compliment imaginable, but it’s rarely the one anyone remembers first.

“Beast, should I sing another insipid love song?”

In conclusion, 1987’s Beauty and the Beast is the kind of film that survives on sheer earnestness. It wants to be magical, and occasionally it almost convinces you, but it’s constantly undermined by its limitations. Still, there’s a strange charm in watching a studio like Cannon attempt something so classical with such modest means. It’s uneven, sometimes unintentionally funny, and often visually underwhelming, yet there’s enough sincerity to keep it from collapsing entirely. Not exactly a fairy tale triumph, but not a complete disaster either, which might be the most honest outcome Cannon could hope for.