["Beauty and the Beast"] is an eminent model of cinema achievement in the realm of poetic fantasy.

This should be understood, however: the achievement is on a definitely adult plane and the beauties of Cocteau's conception will be most appreciated by sophisticated minds. It is not the sort of picture that will send the children into transports of delight, unless they are quite precocious youngsters of the new progressive school.

For Cocteau has taken the old story … and has used it as a pattern for weaving a priceless fabric of subtle images. In the style of his "Blood of a Poet," though less abstract and recondite, it is a fabric of gorgeous visual metaphors, of undulating movements and rhythmic pace, of hypnotic sounds and music, of casually congealing ideas.

Freudian or metaphysician, you can take from it what you will. The concepts are so ingenious that they're probably...