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Saturday January 25th 2025

La Belle Et La BÊte (Beauty And The Beast) | 1946

La Belle Et La Bete filming location: Chateau Raray, France
La Belle Et La Bête location: the castle of the Beast: Chateau Raray, France | Photograph: wikimedia / P Poschadel

Jean Cocteau’s surreal and visually dazzling version of Beauty And The Beast uses a couple of real locations in France. The modest house of the merchant (Marcel Andre) and his daughters is a small manor house and mill, Moulin de Touvoie, rue des Fontenelles, Parçay-Meslay, Rochecorbon, north of Tours. It’s open for guided tours.

By the way, don’t confuse this with Roche Courbon Chateau, between La Rochelle and Saintes in the Poitou-Charentes area, which is famed – confusingly – as the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ castle.

The castle of the Beast (Jean Marais), who is of course also a Prince, is the 17th century Chateau de Raray, 4 rue Nicolas de Lancy, in Raray, about six miles northeast of Senlis. The chateau’s estate is now a prestigious 27-hole golf club.