The Disney Song Encyclopedia - fieldi

“MON AMOUR PERDU” 133
“The Mob Song (Kill the Beast)” is the frightening call to arms Gaston
(voice of Richard White) sings to rouse the townspeople in the animated
film Beauty and the Beast (1991). Alan Menken (music) and Howard Ashman
(lyric) wrote the vigorous number, which is used by the jealous Gaston
to encourage the local citizens to attack the enchanted castle and kill the
fearful beast before he comes to destroy their children. Burke Moses led
the ensemble in singing the song in the 1994 Broadway version of Beauty
and the Beast.
“Mon Amour Perdu” is the French love song by Robert B. and Richard
M. Sherman that provides a touching moment in the film Big Red (1962),
set in French Canada. One evening while the youth René Dumont (Gilles
Payant) plays the harmonica in the kitchen of groundskeeper Émile Fornet
(Émile Genest) and his wife Therese (Janette Bertrand), the couple sing
this haunting little ditty about lost love. The French lyric foreshadows the
young René’s feelings when he temporarily loses his favorite Irish setter,
Big Red. The Shermans originally wrote the melody for a number called
“West Wind” for the movie Mary Poppins (1964) which they were scoring
at the same time but the song was discarded and used in Big Red instead.
The number is sometimes listed as “The Big Red Theme.”
Disney Theatrical Productions’ first Broadway effort was Beauty and the Beast (1994), a colorful
stage musical that was dismissed by the critics but thrilled audiences for thirteen years. Susan
Egan (center) was the first of several actresses to play Belle before going on to other Disney
projects, most memorably as the voice of Megara in Hercules on screen and television. (Joan
Marcus/Photofest)