I said this in my review of Citizen Kane, and I feel it’s also very applicable here too for Snow White. The idea of approaching this film for a review is quite daunting simply because of the status it holds and what it represents for film as a medium. It leaves me questioning every opinion I hold about the film because it, rightly so, is put on a pedestal and held at such a high prestige. So, without further ado, here’s my review of Walt Disney’s first animated classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
First, a little historical context for those who are unaware. 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first feature length animated film in history. Prior to this, cartoon’s including Disney’s very own Mickey Mouse were seen as little more than goofy entertainment for kids and not as something that could be a legitimate cinematic venture. Disney thought differently though and set about adapting a story that was well known and beloved around the world so that he could show as many people as possible what animation was capable of when given the run time of a feature length production.
First, a little historical context for those who are unaware. 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first feature length animated film in history. Prior to this, cartoon’s including Disney’s very own Mickey Mouse were seen as little more than goofy entertainment for kids and not as something that could be a legitimate cinematic venture. Disney thought differently though and set about adapting a story that was well known and beloved around the world so that he could show as many people as possible what animation was capable of when given the run time of a feature length production.
The rest is history. Snow White went on to be a massive success critically and commercially and here we are just shy of nine decades later where almost all children’s films are animated, and the medium has gained enough traction to be branching out for adult entertainment too. It has become a medium which is slowly gaining more attention from awards ceremonies and older animated films are more regularly getting preserved for their historical significance. There’s still a long way to go, but it all started with a young princess, seven little men, and a dastardly Queen.
Snow White (Adriana Caselotti) is a lonely princess that lives with her stepmother, The Queen (Lucille La Verne). The only thing that keeps Snow White safe from The Queen’s tyranny is that the Magic Mirror (Moroni Olsen) on the wall deems The Queen the fairest of them all. But one day the mirror deems Snow White the fairest and as such The Queen orders her Huntsman (Stuart Buchanan) to take Snow White into the forest, kill her, and bring her heart back as proof of his success.
Unable to carry these orders out, the Huntsman tells Snow White to flee and never return. She does so and shortly comes across a small house containing seven tiny empty beds. Assuming its children that live there, Snow White cleans and tidies the house in the hope that they will allow her to stay for doing so.
Come nightfall seven dwarfs return to their home to find all their mess cleaned up and a princess in their beds. After hearing her story and very pleased with her cooking abilities the dwarves agree that she can stay. However, The Queen has already learned of Snow White’s whereabouts and hatches a sinister plot to ensure her demise.
The fact that Disney managed to get Snow White to stretch the length of a feature film without it feeling too long is a miracle in of itself. The Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale would be little more than a few pages in length, so to convert that into an eighty-three-minute film is pretty good going. Disney manages this mostly by including plenty of musical numbers which help pad the runtime out significantly, as well as give the film a more timeless feel to it because the songs are made such an integral part of the plot.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t run into any issues of being stretched a bit thin on content though as around the end of the second act it seems to feel like we get multiple musical numbers very shortly after one another without ever leaving the dwarves’ home. This does drag the pacing to a halt for a little while and so, at least today, make the film feel a little slow.
Snow White (Adriana Caselotti) is a lonely princess that lives with her stepmother, The Queen (Lucille La Verne). The only thing that keeps Snow White safe from The Queen’s tyranny is that the Magic Mirror (Moroni Olsen) on the wall deems The Queen the fairest of them all. But one day the mirror deems Snow White the fairest and as such The Queen orders her Huntsman (Stuart Buchanan) to take Snow White into the forest, kill her, and bring her heart back as proof of his success.
Unable to carry these orders out, the Huntsman tells Snow White to flee and never return. She does so and shortly comes across a small house containing seven tiny empty beds. Assuming its children that live there, Snow White cleans and tidies the house in the hope that they will allow her to stay for doing so.
Come nightfall seven dwarfs return to their home to find all their mess cleaned up and a princess in their beds. After hearing her story and very pleased with her cooking abilities the dwarves agree that she can stay. However, The Queen has already learned of Snow White’s whereabouts and hatches a sinister plot to ensure her demise.
The fact that Disney managed to get Snow White to stretch the length of a feature film without it feeling too long is a miracle in of itself. The Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale would be little more than a few pages in length, so to convert that into an eighty-three-minute film is pretty good going. Disney manages this mostly by including plenty of musical numbers which help pad the runtime out significantly, as well as give the film a more timeless feel to it because the songs are made such an integral part of the plot.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t run into any issues of being stretched a bit thin on content though as around the end of the second act it seems to feel like we get multiple musical numbers very shortly after one another without ever leaving the dwarves’ home. This does drag the pacing to a halt for a little while and so, at least today, make the film feel a little slow.
The animation quality is simply beautiful with gorgeous. Many of the backgrounds appear to be painted whilst it is the characters and objects, they interact with that are drawn. Though these two different artistic disciplines live in harmony with each other on screen without it being explicitly obvious what won’t move. Something that even decades later many animation studios struggled to master in quite the same way.
The songs are all very catchy and memorable which I’m sure played a big part in ensuring Snow White’s success. The fact that many of the big numbers such as Hi-Ho!, and Whistle While You Work are instantly recognisable today and have been since the film’s release is a testament to the quality of workmanship behind the film.
When viewing the film through modern eyes the character of Snow White does seem slightly problematic in the sense of, she’s a woman who’s so incapable of looking after herself that she is willing to be a housemaid for seven men because all she’s good at is cooking and cleaning. But given the fact that the film is not far off being ninety years old, and it is also based on a fairy tale that when the film was being made was over a century old, I feel like these problems should be easily seen as a product of their time. What’s more worrying is that in ninety years we haven’t progressed all that much further with female characters, but at least the trend is starting to shift in the right direction.
Whilst Snow White is not my favourite Disney film by quite a wide margin, it’s impossible to deny the impact the film has had on cinema and animation over the last several decades. It can certainly feel a little barebones at times, but every legacy has a starting point and you can certainly do a lot worse than Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as a start.
The songs are all very catchy and memorable which I’m sure played a big part in ensuring Snow White’s success. The fact that many of the big numbers such as Hi-Ho!, and Whistle While You Work are instantly recognisable today and have been since the film’s release is a testament to the quality of workmanship behind the film.
When viewing the film through modern eyes the character of Snow White does seem slightly problematic in the sense of, she’s a woman who’s so incapable of looking after herself that she is willing to be a housemaid for seven men because all she’s good at is cooking and cleaning. But given the fact that the film is not far off being ninety years old, and it is also based on a fairy tale that when the film was being made was over a century old, I feel like these problems should be easily seen as a product of their time. What’s more worrying is that in ninety years we haven’t progressed all that much further with female characters, but at least the trend is starting to shift in the right direction.
Whilst Snow White is not my favourite Disney film by quite a wide margin, it’s impossible to deny the impact the film has had on cinema and animation over the last several decades. It can certainly feel a little barebones at times, but every legacy has a starting point and you can certainly do a lot worse than Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as a start.