Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ***** (1937, Walt Disney) – Classic Movie Review 1412

‘Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?’ – the jealous wicked Queen.

Supervising director David Hand’s 1937 animation Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a trailblazer as the first full-length cel animated feature film and the earliest in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. Walt Disney won an honorary Oscar for ‘a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field’.

With cartoons hitherto previously always short films, Walt Disney challenged the prevailing conventions of the day by making a full-length animated feature, and turned his project in a labour of both love and craft, as well as business, into a triumphant classic. It of course has the inestimable benefit of a magical story based on the German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, and it is delightfully told here with adorable, believable and fully fleshed-out characters, particularly those of the dwarfs.

In Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm‘s famous story, Snow White is pursued by a jealous wicked Queen and hides out with the Seven Dwarfs. The Queen feeds her a poison apple, but Prince Charming awakens her from her coma with a loving kiss.

The story is adapted by storyboard artists Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and Webb Smith. David Hand was the director, while William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen direct the film’s individual sequences.

The four years of loving, costly film-making ensure the greatest possible achievement on the technical front. It is splendidly drawn and photographed in rich Technicolor, as well as remarkably impressive in the sound and editing departments.

The great songs by Frank Churchill (music) and Larry Morey (lyrics) are the icing on the cake: ‘Heigh-Ho’, ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’, ‘Whistle While You Work’, ‘I’m Wishing’, and ‘With a Smile and a Song’. The famous highlight ‘Heigh-Ho’ sequence was animated by Shamus Culhane.

The charismatic voice cast is headed by Adriana Caselotti as Snow White, Harry Stockwell as the Prince and Lucille La Verne as the wicked Queen/Witch, Snow White’s stepmother, Roy Atwell as Doc, Pinto Colvig as Grumpy and Sleepy, Otis Harlan as Happy, Scotty Mattraw as Bashful, Billy Gilbert as Sneezy, Eddie Collins as Dopey, Moroni Olsen as The Magic Mirror and Stuart Buchanan as Humbert the Huntsman.

At the 11th Academy Awards, Walt Disney was awarded an honorary Oscar for ‘a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field’ and the film was nominated for Best Musical Score. A full-size Oscar statuette and seven miniature ones were presented to Disney by 10-year-old child actress Shirley Temple.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre on 21 December 1937, followed by an American nationwide release on 4 February 1938.  It was the first of many Disney films to have its premiere engagement at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. Afterwards, all the velvet seat upholstery had to be replaced because young children were so frightened by the sequence of Snow White lost in the forest that they damaged the seats. With international earnings of $8 million during its initial release, it held the record of highest grossing sound film at the time.

You may notice that after Snow White discovers she is stuck to the tree she raises her arms while screaming but in the next shot one of her hands is on her skirt.

It is on the list of the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest American films. The AFI named it as the greatest American animated film of all time in 2008.

Snow White’s success led to Disney starting more feature films. Walt Disney used much of the profit from Snow White to finance a new $4.5 million studio in Burbank – where The Walt Disney Studios is still located. Within two years, the studio completed Pinocchio and Fantasia, and had begun production on Dumbo, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan.

The movie is now in great shape thanks to modern technology and a couple of restorations. On October 28 1994, the film was released as the first video in the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection and the first in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. The digitally restored film was released on DVD on October 9 2001, the first in Disney’s Platinum Editions. It was released on Blu-ray Disc on October 6 2009, the first of Disney’s Diamond Editions, with  a high-definition version of the movie sourced from a new restoration by Lowry Digital.

Snow White’s Scary Adventures is a popular theme park ride at Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris. It was an opening day attraction at Disneyland dating from 1955.

Disney revisited Snow White and Sleeping Beauty in 2014 with the live action Maleficent, followed by a sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019).

Kristen Stewart plays Snow White in Universal’s 2012 Snow White and the Huntsman, with Charlize Theron as wicked Queen Ravenna, who returns without Snow White in The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016).

In the original Brothers Grimm story (translated into English), The Queen says: ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who in this land is fairest of all?’

Sleeping Beauty (1958).

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1412

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