A FILM TO REMEMBER: “SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS” (1938)

Before I get into this, I want to make mention “A FILM TO REMEMBER” will be a series about films that have reached a milestone anniversary since their origin. The articles will contain the film’s plot outline, director, cast, a compilation of trivialities, various photos, movie trailer, critical reception and more. So, let’s start:

We are here to mark the celebration of the 80th Anniversary of David Hand’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Let’s take an inside look at the film:

PLOT OUTLINE:

A beautiful and kindhearted princess is exiled into the dangerous forest by her wicked stepmother, she’s rescued by seven dwarf miners who make her part of their household.

STUDIO:

Walt Disney Pictures

DIRECTOR:

David Hand

CAST:

• Adriana Caselotti … Snow White (voice) (uncredited)
• Lucille La Verne … Queen / Witch (voices) (uncredited)
• Harry Stockwell … The Prince (voice) (uncredited)
• Roy Atwell … Doc (voice) (uncredited)
• Pinto Colvig … Grumpy / Sleepy / Dopey Blowing Bubbles (voices) (uncredited)
• Otis Harlan … Happy (voice) (uncredited)
• Scotty Mattraw … Bashful (voice) (uncredited)
• Billy Gilbert … Sneezy (voice) (uncredited)
• Eddie Collins … Dopey / Chipmunk and Squirrel Sneezes (Dopey’s vocal effects and live-action reference only) (voices) (uncredited)
• Moroni Olsen … The Magic Mirror (voice) (uncredited)
• Stuart Buchanan … The Huntsman (voice) (uncredited)
• James MacDonald … Yodeling (voice) (uncredited)
• Marion Darlington … Birds (voice) (uncredited)
• Purv Pullen … Birds (voice) (uncredited)

GENRE(S):

Animation | Family | Fantasy | Musical | Romance

TAGLINE:

Walt Disney’s first full length feature production.

The film is known for being the first full-length cell animated feature film and the earliest Disney animated feature film in what would transcend the industry in its development of the animated genre. Walt Disney with director David Hand’s adoption with expressionist visual devices making for genuinely powerful drama that completely redraws a much-loved fairy tale of bad stepmothers, forest glades and handsome princes that previously existed only on the printed page of this Heigh-Ho classic. The film is based from the Brothers Grimm’s German fairy tale of the same name, it was a tremendous critical success with many hailing it as a genuine artistic achievement of historical value in cinematic history as its success led to Walt Disney and co. moving ahead with more feature film productions.

Here’s what some of the critical receptions have been for the film over the years:

Roger Ebert from Chicago Sun-Times says: “To one degree or another, every animated feature made since owes it something.”

Frank S. Nugent from New York Times says: “It is a classic, as important cinematically as ‘The Birth of a Nation’ or the birth of Mickey Mouse.”

Otis Ferguson from The New Republic says: “To say of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ that it is among the genuine artistic achievements of this country takes no great daring.”

John C. Flinn, Sr from Variety says: “So perfect is the illusion, so tender the romance and fantasy, so emotional are certain portions when the acting of the characters strikes a depth comparable to the sincerity of human players, that the film approaches real greatness.”

Desson Howe from Washington Post says: “Like many of the Disney films, from ‘Pinocchio’ to ‘Fantasia,’ this film is a cinematic rite of passage — for children and adults.”

As you can tell by the critical reactions, the film is practically deemed a cinematic masterpiece in the genre of animation although film historians often state that the animation of the human characters was criticized, more recent scholars found that most reviewers praised Disney and Hand’s realistic style approach of the human animation, with several stating that audiences will forget that they are watching animated humans rather than real ones. The film pushed the art form in new thrilling and inspiring directions from there on out, all the while completely redrawing a much-loved fairy tale and others to come. But I’ll let you decide…

So, to get a better look at the film, here’s a link to the movie trailer of David Hand’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”:

Here I have provided 12 interesting and intriguing trivia facts (I wanted to keep it limited) about “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”:

• Before “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the Walt Disney studios had been primarily involved in the production of animated short subjects in the “Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies” series. CEO and producer Walt Disney hoped to expand his studio’s prestige and revenues by moving into feature films, and estimated that the film, could be produced for a budget of $250,000 dollars; this was ten times the budget of an average “Silly Symphony.”
• This film was to be the first full-length cel animated feature in motion picture history, and as such Walt Disney had to fight to get the film produced. Both his brother and business partner Roy Disney and his wife Lillian attempted to talk him out of it, and the Hollywood film industry referred to the film derisively as “Disney’s Folly” while it was in production. Walt had to mortgage his house to help finance the film’s production, which eventually ran up a total cost of $1,488,422.74, a massive sum for a feature film in 1937.
• At a recording session, Lucille La Verne, the voice of the character the Wicked Queen, was told by Walt Disney’s animators that they needed an older, raspier version of the Queen’s voice for the Old Witch. La Verne stepped out of the recording booth, returned a few minutes later, and gave a perfect “Old Hag’s voice” that stunned the animators. When asked how she did it, she replied, “Oh, I just took my teeth out.”
• All the dwarfs were modeled after real people.
• Some animators were opposed to the name “Dopey,” claiming that it was too modern a word to use in a timeless fairy tale. Walt Disney made the argument that William Shakespeare used the word in one of his plays. This managed to convince everyone, although any reference to the term “dopey” is yet to be found in any of Shakespeare’s work.
• The character of the Prince was originally a much more prominent character, but the difficulty found in animating him convincingly forced the animators to reduce his part significantly.

• At this time, Walt Disney also encouraged his staff to see a variety of films. These ranged from the mainstream, such as MGM’s “Romeo and Juliet” (1936) — to which Disney made direct reference in a story meeting pertaining to the scene in which Snow White lies in her glass coffin — to the more obscure, including European silent cinema. This film as well as the 2 Disney films to follow it, were also influenced by such German expressionist films as “Nosferatu” (1922) and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1919), both of which were recommended by Disney to his staff. This influence is particularly evident in the scenes of the character Snow White fleeing through the forest and the Queen’s transformation into the Witch. The latter scene was also inspired by “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1931), to which Disney made specific reference in story meetings.
• Walt Disney wanted to keep Snow White’s voice as a special one-time sound, and held Adriana Caselotti to a very strict contract. Except for a tiny bit part in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), she never had a real singing part in a movie again, though she was a classically trained singer.
• Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California was built with the profits it received from this film in building the new $4.5 million dollar studio.
• Fifty ideas for the dwarfs’ names and personalities were listed in the film’s proposal; the list included all of the names finally included except Dopey and Doc (Dopey being the last to be developed). Some of the dwarfs were: Awful (“He steals and drinks and is very dirty”), Biggy-Wiggy or Biggo-Ego, Blabby, Deefy, Dirty, Gabby, Gaspy, Gloomy, Hoppy-Jumpy, Hotsy, Jaunty, Nifty, and Shifty. Sneezy was a last-minute replacement for Deefy. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz once wrote that he had heard that another name considered for a dwarf was “Snoopy” and that he was relieved that it had not been chosen as it would have probably prevented him from giving that name to his famous cartoon beagle.
• Publicity material relates that production employed 32 animators, 102 assistants, 167 “in-betweeners,” 20 layout artists, 25 artists doing water color backgrounds, 65 effects animators, and 158 female inkers and painters. 2,000,000 illustrations were made using 1500 shades of paint.
• In the 2000s, DisneyToon Studios began development on a computer-animated prequel to the film titled “The Seven Dwarfs.” Director Mike Disa and screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos pitched a story explaining how the Dwarfs met, and how the Evil Queen killed Snow White’s father and took the throne. According to Disa, DisneyToon management changed the prequel to center around how Dopey lost his voice upon witnessing the death of his mother. After Disney purchased Pixar in 2006, John Lasseter, DisneyToons’ new Chief Creative Officer (at the time), canceled the project.

To conclude, David Hand’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is what many consider to be Walt Disney’s greatest achievement in the motion picture industry and with the assistance of David Hand’s guided technical prowess and lauded sense of mood brings an involving story and characters, vibrant art and memorable songs, as it’s a cinematic rite of passage that was a significant screen innovation of imaginary artistry which has undeniably pioneered a great new entertainment field and set the animation standards of its genre in making it a dimensionally animated, musically toe tapping and a revolutionary fantasy thrill of cinema landmark.

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