Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Château de Raray

Raray, France

Renaissance castle located in the heart of Valois, in Oise, part of which is classified and another part listed as a historical monument. Its façade features nineteen sculpted openings; a vast surrounding wall encloses the park along with four corner turrets, and two ramparts commissioned during the Renaissance by the property's owner border the honor courtyard. The estate currently hosts a twenty-seven-hole golf course.

The scene : The Merchant arrives at the end of his night of wandering: the fog lifts, the gates of the estate open by themselves in front of him, then close again. The castle and its park form the domain of the Beast, chosen by Cocteau for its wild appearance. The filming took place there from September 21 to 28, 1945.

Raray, France

One of the two monumental balustrades that line the courtyard of the Château de Raray, erected by Nicolas de Lancy, advisor to kings Henri IV and Louis XIII, who sought to embellish the estate in the manner of the Italian Renaissance. A great hunter, he had them sculpted on the theme of hunting: twenty life-size dogs frame a stag, one out of two sitting, the others on the lookout or in attack mode. Unique in France, they are the hallmark of Raray.

The scene : The balustrade where the stone stag appears on screen: the two sculpted walls lining the honor courtyard form part of the Beast's domain, which Cocteau called "the wall of the hunts of Raray." The filming took place there from September 21 to 28, 1945.

Raray, France

One of the two monumental balustrades that border the honor courtyard of the Château de Raray, raised by Nicolas de Lancy, advisor to Kings Henri IV and Louis XIII, who sought to embellish the estate in the style of the Italian Renaissance. A great hunter, he had them sculpted on the theme of hunting: twenty life-sized dogs frame a wild boar, with one out of two sitting, the others on the watch or on the attack. Unique in France, they make Raray famous.

The scene : The second of the two carved balustrades that frame the courtyard of honor and compose the domain of the Beast, opposite the one that carries the stag. The filming took place there from September 21 to 28, 1945.

Moulin de Touvoie

Rochecorbon, France

Manor-mill of the Loire valley, in Rochecorbon, Indre-et-Loire, classified as a historical monument since 1952: the protection covers the facades and roofs of the residential buildings and the barn, as well as the garden fountain. The toponym has been attested since 1225 and has been written in many ways — Touvoy, Touvoye, Touvois — before the land registry and the IGN fixed it as "Touvoie". The site can now be visited by appointment, with a guide.

The scene : The family home of the ruined merchant and his daughters. Belle walks along the facade at night until she reaches a monster-head shaped knocker; in the garden, a horseback scene involves the horse Aramis and the command given for the gates to open. Filming took place here from August 27 to September 12, 1945.

Parçay-Meslay, France

The scene : L2TC lists the tithe barn of Meslay among the shooting locations of the film, without specifying the scene that takes place there; the English Wikipedia, on the other hand, categorizes the commune of Parçay-Meslay among the film's outdoor locations.

Saint-Maurice, France

Saint-Maurice Film Studios (formerly Pathé Studios, known as Franstudio), to the east of Paris.

The scene : The majority of the film's interiors were shot there: the Beast's castle and its stables, where workers began setting up the set as early as September 19, 1945, followed by the dining rooms, the dressing rooms, and the screening rooms. Cocteau describes there, on October 1st, "a true world of industrious ants" busy in the set.

Epinay-sur-Seine, France

The Épinay Studios are a complex of film studios located in Épinay-sur-Seine, in Seine-Saint-Denis, and are among the oldest in France. Their origins date back to 1907, when industrialist Charles Jourjon founded the company Éclair, which became the third French firm behind Pathé and Gaumont in the 1910s. The studio itself was set up in 1913 and was then acquired by Éclair in 1914. By the end of the 1920s, the German company Tobis established one of the first sound studios in France at the same address, utilizing the Tobis-Klangfilm process; these neighboring facilities were absorbed by Éclair in 1938. The site long housed film sets and significant development and post-production laboratories, with its studios being taken over by the TSF group in 2009, before the opening of the nearby Cité du cinéma reduced their activity from 2012.

The scene : The very first days of filming took place there, in early September 1945, before production moved to Rochecorbon and then Raray.

Joinville-le-Pont, France

Old movie studios in Joinville-le-Pont (Val-de-Marne), and not in Haute-Marne despite the IMDb label. Well documented in the General Inventory of Cultural Heritage.

The scene : Wikipedia in English lists the Joinville studios among the three studios where the interior scenes of the film were shot, alongside Saint-Maurice and Épinay.