Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 animated feature, the first produced by Walt Disney. It wasn't the first
full-length animated feature to be produced (the 1917 Argentine film El Apóstol holds that distinction, and there are
seven earlier ones). However, it was the first animated feature to become widely successful within the English-speaking world and the first to be filmed in Technicolor.
The film premiered on December 21, 1937 with a wide
theatrical release by RKO Radio Pictures on February 8,
1938. The film was adapted by storyboard artists Dorothy Ann
Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto
Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and
Webb Smith from the German fairy tale Snow White
by the Brothers Grimm. David Hand was the supervising
director, while William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen directed the film's individual
sequences.
Snow White was the most successful motion picture released in 1938, is the tenth
highest-grossing film of all time (and the highest-grossing animated film) within the U.S., when adjusted for inflation.[1]
Snow White was one out of only two animated films to rank in the American
Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films of all
time in 1997 (the other being Fantasia),
ranking number 49. It achieved a higher ranking (#34) in the list's 2007 update, this time being the only traditionally animated
film on the list.
In 1989, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically
significant."
Plot
The film begins with a prologue:
- Once upon a time there lived a lovely little princess named Snow White. Her vain and wicked stepmother the Queen feared
that some day Snow White's beauty would surpass her own. So she dressed the little Princess in rags and forced her to work as a
Scullery Maid. Each day the vain Queen consulted her Magic Mirror, 'Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?'
and as long as the Mirror answered, 'You are the fairest one of all,' Snow White was safe from the Queen's cruel
jealousy.
One day, however, the Magic Mirror informs the queen that Snow White, despite her rags, is now the fairest in the land. In
addition, the queen observes the arrival of a prince, who serenades the young girl as she gathers water from a well to scrub the
grounds. These events fuel the queen's jealousy, and she orders her huntsman to take Snow White into the woods and kill her. As
proof, the queen requires the huntsman to bring back the dead girl's heart in a jeweled box. The kind-hearted huntsman cannot go
through with the act, and urges Snow White to flee into the woods and never come back.
The frightened princess finds herself lost in the woods, and terrified by luminous glowing eyes peering from within the trees
and the brush. These turn out to be the eyes of friendly woodland creatures, who befriend Snow White and lead her to a cottage
deep in the forest. Finding seven small chairs in the cottage's dining room, Snow White assumes the cottage is the home of seven
children—"Seven untidy children," she notes as she finds the cottage in disarray. The princess and the animals band together and
clean the cottage, hoping that the good deed will convince the children to let Snow White stay with them.
The woodland cottage belongs not to seven children but to seven adult dwarfs who spend their days working in a nearby diamond
mine. Upon returning home at the end of the working day, they are alarmed to find their cottage clean, and surmise that a
monstrous intruder has invaded their home. The dwarfs discover Snow White upstairs, asleep in their beds. The princess introduces
herself, and the dwarfs, save for one aptly named Grumpy, are pleased to welcome her as a house guest, particularly when they
learn she can cook and has prepared dinner. They are less pleased, however, at Snow White's insistence that they wash up before
eating, something they've never done and only do after much apprehension.
Meanwhile, the huntsman has returned to the castle and delivered the Queen what she assumes to be Snow White's heart. However,
the magic mirror informs the Queen that Snow White is in the care of the seven dwarfs, and that the huntsman has actually given
the Queen a pig's heart. The enraged Queen descends to a secret laboratory, where she practices witchcraft. Using her potions and
spells, the Queen disguises herself as an ugly old hag and prepares a poisoned apple to place Snow White in an eternal state of
repose called, The Sleeping Death.
The next morning, the dwarfs head out for the diamond mine, warning Snow White to beware of the evil Queen. However, the
Queen's disguise is so convincing that Snow White is neither alarmed nor alert when the she arrives at the dwarfs' cottage,
pretending to be an apple peddler. The Queen offers Snow White the poisoned apple, claiming it to be a magic wishing apple. Snow
White's animal friends are not as easily convinced, and rush off to warn the dwarfs. While they are gone, however, Snow White
takes a bite out of the apple, and falls to the floor, seemingly dead. A storm starts up outside, as the ugly old hag cackles,
"Now I'll be fairest in the land!"
The dwarfs arrive, riding deer, just in time to catch the Queen fleeing from the cottage. The dwarfs chase the hag through the
raging storm, following her up the side of a mountain and trapping her at the edge of a jagged cliff. Desperate to rid herself of
the dwarfs, the Queen attempts to push a boulder down the mountainside and onto them. However, a bolt of lightning strikes the
edge of the cliff where she stands, causing her to fall into the chasm below as the boulder she had tried to push onto the dwarfs
rolls backwards to crush her.
Despite having done away with the Queen, the dwarfs return to their cottage and find Snow White seemingly dead. They cannot
bear to bury her, and instead build for her a glass coffin trimmed with gold in a clearing in the forest. The dwarfs and the
woodland creatures keep watch over Snow White through the autumn, winter, and spring. One day, the prince, who had been searching
all over for the princess, learns of her plight and comes to visit the coffin. Captivated by her beauty, he approaches the coffin
and kisses Snow White, restoring her to life with, "Love's first kiss"—the only cure for the sleeping death. The dwarfs and
animals all rejoice, and tearfully say good-bye to Snow White as she and the prince ride off into the sunset to his castle, where
they live happily ever after.
History
Walt Disney introduces each of the Seven Dwarfs in a scene from the original 1937
Snow
White theatrical trailer.
"Disney's Folly": production
Development on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs began in early 1934, and in June 1934, Walt Disney announced the production of his first feature to the New
York Times. [2] Before
Snow White, the Disney studio had been primarily involved in the production of highly successful animated short subjects in the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Disney hoped to expand his studio's prestige and revenues by moving into
features, and estimated that Snow White could be produced for a budget of $250,000 - ten times the budget of an average
Silly Symphony.
Walt Disney had to fight to get the film produced. Both his brother Roy Disney and his wife Lillian attempted to talk him out of it, and the Hollywood movie industry
mockingly referred to the film as "Disney's Folly" while it was in production. He even had to mortgage his house to help finance the film's production, which eventually ran up a total cost of just over
$1.5 million, a whopping sum for a feature film in 1937.
Snow White, which spent three years in production, was the end result of Walt Disney's plan to improve the production
quality of his studio's output, and also to find a source of income other than short
subjects. Many animation techniques which later became standards were developed or improved for the film, including the
animation of realistic humans (with and without the help of the rotoscope), effective
character animation (taking characters that look similar — the dwarfs, in this case — and making them distinct characters through
their body acting and movement), elaborate effects animation to depict rain, lightning, water, reflections, sparkles, magic, and
other objects and phenomena, and the use of the multiplane camera.
The names of the Seven Dwarfs ("Bashful," "Doc," "Dopey," "Grumpy," "Happy," "Sleepy" and "Sneezy") were created
for this production, chosen from a pool of about fifty potentials. Blabby, Jumpy, Shifty, and Snoopy were among those that were
rejected (along with Scrappy, Cranky, Dirty, Awful, Silly, Daffy, Flabby, Jaunty, Biggo Ego, Chesty, Bald, Gabby, Nifty, Sniffy,
Burpy, Scaredy, Lazy, Puffy, Elisey, Dizzy, Stuffy, Gassy, Tubby, Mr. Shy, Cheery, Flaunty, Hairy and Grabby) [3].
The songs in Snow White were composed by Frank Churchill and Larry Morey. Paul J. Smith, Leigh Harline and Churchill composed the incidental music score. Well-known songs from Snow White
include "Heigh-Ho," "Some Day My Prince Will Come," and "Whistle While You Work." Because Disney did not have its own music
publishing company at this time, the publishing rights for the music and songs were administered through the Bourne Co., which
continues to hold these rights. In later years, the Studio was able to acquire back the rights to the music from many of the
other films, but not this one. Snow White became the first American film to have a soundtrack album released in conjunction with the feature film. Prior to Snow White, a movie
soundtrack recording was unheard of and of little value to a movie studio.
Critical and commercial success
Disney's wife, Lillian, told him: "No one's ever gonna pay a dime to see a dwarf picture."[4] Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater on
December 21st, 1937 to a widely receptive audience (many of
whom were the same naysayers who dubbed the film "Disney's Folly"), who gave the film a standing ovation at its completion.
Shortly thereafter, Walt Disney and his magical dwarfs appeared on the cover of Time magazine. The New York Times said "Thank you
very much, Mr. Disney." RKO Radio Pictures put the film into general release on
February 4th, 1938, and it went on to become a major box-office
success, making more money than any other motion picture in 1938. In fact, for a short time, Snow White was the
highest-grossing film in American cinema history; it was ousted from that spot by Gone with the Wind in 1939. Adjusted for inflation, and incorporating subsequent releases,
the film still registers one of the top ten American film grosses of all time.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length animated feature film made in English and Technicolor, and won an honorary Academy Award for Walt Disney "as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered
a great new entertainment field." Disney received a full-size Oscar statuette and seven miniature ones, presented to him by child
actress Shirley Temple.
The film was also nominated for Best Musical Score. "Some Day
My Prince Will Come" has become a jazz standard that has been performed by numerous
artists, including Buddy Rich, Oscar Peterson, and
Miles Davis.
Noted filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein and Charlie Chaplin praised Snow White as a notable achievement in cinema. [5] The film inspired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to produce its own fantasy film, The Wizard of Oz. The 1943 Merrie
Melodies short Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs,
directed by Bob Clampett, parodies Snow White by presenting the story with an
all-black cast singing a jazz score.
Snow White was such a success that the Disney studio would produce more animated films.
Re-releases, home video, and related products
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was first re-released in 1944, in order to raise revenue for the Disney studio during
the World War II period. This re-release set a tradition of re-releasing Disney animated
features every seven to ten years, and Snow White was re-released to theaters in 1952, 1958, 1967, 1975, 1983, 1987, and
1993. The film was restored for its 1987 50th anniversary reissue and a more comprehensive digital restoration was done for the
1993 reissue.
Coinciding with the 1987 release, Disney released an authorized novelization of the story, written by childrens' author,
Suzanne Weyn.
Snow White wouldn't be released on VHS until 1994, as the first video in the
Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection.It was the last of the early
Disney animated films to be released on home video.Snow White was later released on DVD in
October 2001, the first in Disney's Platinum Series line of releases, and
featured, across two discs, the digitally restored film, a making-of documentary narrated by Angela Lansbury, an audio commentary by John Canemaker and (via
archived audio clips) Walt Disney, and many more special features. [1]
A Snow White video game was released for the Game Boy Color system. Snow White
makes an appearance in the popular Playstation 2 game Kingdom Hearts as one of the seven fabled Princesses
of Heart. As of 2006, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is one of three Disney
full-length animated classics that still have never been shown complete on television. The
others are Fantasia, and Song of the
South.
Snow White's Scary Adventures is a popular theme park ride at
Disneyland (an opening day attraction dating from 1955), Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris.
In a famous scene in the film Gremlins, the Gremlins invade a theater. One of them puts a
reel in the projection booth, which shows part of this film. The Gremlins immediately stop what they are doing and begin watching
the film, even singing along during "Heigh-Ho".
Snow White theatrical release history
United States Releases
- December 21, 1937 (Theatrical premiere)
- February 4, 1938 (Original release)
- February 22, 1944
- February 13, 1952
- February 7, 1958
- June 11, 1967
- December 20, 1975
- July 15, 1983
- July 17, 1987
- July 2, 1993
|
Worldwide Releases
| Country |
Date |
| Brazil |
January 7, 1938 |
| Argentina |
January 26, 1938 |
| U.K. |
March 12, 1938 |
| Canada |
April 5, 1938 |
| France |
May 4, 1938 |
| Belgium, Netherlands |
May 26, 1938 |
| Australia |
August 18, 1938 |
| Norway |
September 12, 1938 |
| Sweden |
September 27, 1938 |
| Denmark |
September 29, 1938 |
| Finland |
October 16, 1938 |
| Eritrea |
December 7, 1938 |
| Italy |
December 8, 1938 |
| Portugal |
March 9, 1939 |
| Hong Kong |
January 16, 1941 |
| Spain |
October 6, 1941 |
| Poland |
December 21, 1947 |
| Austria |
June 25, 1948 |
| Philippines |
September 24, 1949 |
| West Germany |
February 24, 1950 |
| Japan |
September 16, 1950 |
| Lebanon |
July 30, 1966 |
| Kuwait |
June 11, 1984 |
|
Characters
- Princess Snow White, voiced by Adriana
Caselotti. Snow White was the daughter of a great king whose wife died when she was very young. Her wicked stepmother
forced her to work as a scullery maid in the castle. Despite this she retains a cheerful yet naive demeanor. Virginia Davis, who starred in Disney's "Alice" series, was considered for the role of Snow White, but
was rejected. Deana Durbin was also considered, but was rejected because her voice was "too mature" for the role.
- The Queen/Witch, voiced by Lucille La Verne. The Queen is the stepmother of Snow White. Once her magic mirror tells her that Snow White is fairer than she is, she
immediately enlists her huntsman to kill her in the woods.
After she discovers that Snow White did not die, she disguises herself as an old hag and uses a
poisoned apple in order to "kill" Snow White. While recording the voice of the Queen as the hag,
Walt Disney was not happy with the voice Lucille La Verne was producing. After several retakes La Verne asked if she could go to
the bathroom. When she returned and tried again to do the voice, she performed it perfectly. Amazed, Disney asked how she had
achieved it. La Verne replied that she had removed her false teeth.
- Doc, voiced by Roy Atwell. Doc is considered the leader of the seven
dwarfs, and is presumably the oldest. He wears glasses and often mixes up his words. His job in the dwarfs' mine is to check the authenticity of the many gems (Joe Twerp, who was famous for spoonerizing words, was considered for the role, but only played Doc in the
radio version of the movie).
- Grumpy, voiced by Pinto Colvig. Grumpy is grumpy as his name suggests. He
has the biggest nose of the seven and he automatically disapproves of Snow White for the mere fact that she is a woman. However,
though initially too proud to show it, deep down he cares perhaps the most for her safety. He repeatedly warns her of the Queen
and rushes to her aid upon hearing she is in danger.
- Happy, voiced by Otis Harlan. Happy is the joyous dwarf. He is the fattest of
the seven and is always laughing.
- Sleepy, voiced by Pinto Colvig. Sleepy is always tired with heavy
eyelids. His job at the mine is to haul all the diamonds and rubies by cart to Doc for inspection. He also has the longest
beard of the seven. Usually he is pestered by a fly (Sterling Holloway was considered for the role)
- Bashful, voiced by Scotty Mattraw. Bashful is the shyest of the dwarfs. He
frequently annoys Grumpy, though not as much as Doc. In Walt Disney's own words, according to one of the film's original
theatrical trailers, Bashful is "secretly in love with Snow White."
- Sneezy, voiced by Billy Gilbert. Sneezy sneezes almost all the time. He
has the shortest beard of the seven (besides the beardless Dopey). The cause of his sneezes is an
allergy to flowers.
- Dopey, with vocal effects supplied by Eddie Collins.[6] Dopey is the only dwarf to have no beard at
all, and he is presumably the youngest of the seven. He is a mute, or at least the dwarfs do not know if he can talk since "he
ain't never tried before". His job at the mine is to clean up all the unusable jewels and lock up
the vault. He is always seen last in line whenever the dwarfs walk to and from work. Although
he is scared at times, he can also be very brave, especially when Snow White is in danger.
- The Prince, voiced by Harry Stockwell. The Prince first sees Snow
White while she is singing at her wishing well. He immediately falls in love with her and
her voice.
- Humbert the Huntsman, voiced by Stuart Buchanan. The Huntsman is a
kind-hearted person who can't bear to kill Snow White, even when the Queen orders him to take the princess's heart.
Unvoiced characters include Snow White's animal friends, the Queen's
raven, and the vultures who follow the Witch.
However, although the animals didn't have human speaking voices, their natural calls were very lifelike, and were all voiced by
champion whistler and animal mimic A. Purves Pullen, who would provide bird and animal calls for Disney films (including numerous
Pluto cartoons) for several decades. He even did the bird calls for the Enchanted Tiki Room attractions at Disney theme parks.
During the 1940s and '50s, he also performed as "Dr. Horatio Q. Birdbath" with the comedy band Spike Jones & His City
Slickers.
Songs
-
Songs written for film but not used include two songs for the Dwarfs: "Music in Your Soup" (the accompanying sequence was
completed up to the pencil test stage before being deleted from the film), and "You're Never
Too Old to Be Young" (which was replaced by "The Silly
Song").
Crew
Supervising animators
Animators
See also
Notes
External links
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