Cocteau's classic starring Jean Marais and Josette Day remains one of the cinema's most enchanting and sensuous excursions into the realm of poetic fantasy, and a feast for the fairy-tale faithful. But Cocteau reverses the happy ending by making the Beast's transformation a cause for regret. "My aim," he said "would be to make the Beast so human, so sympathetic, so superior to men, that his transformation into Prince Charming would come as a terrible blow to Beauty, condemning her to a humdrum marriage and a future that is summed up in that last sentence of all fairy tales: 'And they had many children.'"