Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1938

In order to achieve my goal of viewing the films in chronological order, I started at the very beginning, with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released in 1938. I have to admit that I was not very excited about watching Snow White again; as a child I found the movie extremely frightening, especially when I went to see it in theaters, during the film's last release in 1993. I was intrigued after learning more about the history of animation, however, to view the film from a more technical perspective.
Snow White plays a large role in American film history, as the first full-length animated feature in Technicolor. The film also utilized a so-called "multiplane" camera, which allowed for the illustrations to be layered on each other so that the viewer could sense a distinct fore, middle, and background. This technology also allowed for the sets to be drawn separately from the characters. The camera was a major investment for Disney studios, and prior to Snow White had only been used in the Disney short The Old Mill. This promotional clip shows the Disney Studios eagerly producing Snow White.


The production of Snow White went WAY over Disney's original budget, with the final negative cost (which, I just learned, is the cost of film production, not including distribution or promotional costs)close to $1.5 million, almost ten times the original proposal, which the American Film Institute catalog says was between $150,000 and $250,000. The film was a major success, however, both in the box office and in merchandising revenue, a fairly new concept for this time. Books, toys, sheet music, even...



...valentines (very appropriate for today) were part of Disney's merchandizing effort. The film grossed a whopping $8.5 million in it's first year of release.

This week I interviewed a couple that I work for about their experience viewing Snow White when it first came out in 1938. The husband, who was a teenager when the movie premiered, said that this was his first color film, and was an incredible thing to behold. He recalled that even his parents were excited to view the film, it was not viewed as something only for children's entertainment (and, interestingly, for awhile in the U.K. Snow White carried a high rating so that children could not view the film unchaperoned). The wife had viewed a color film prior to Snow White, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine starring Henry Fonda, the first outdoor film to be shot in Technicolor. In spite of this, she too said that viewing Snow White was an amazing experience.
Of course it's been seventy years since either of my friends saw Snow White for the first time, but both says that they do not remember either seeing promotional material pre-release or consuming any licensed merchandise. However, they do remember having heard a lot of hype about the film prior to viewing it at their local theaters (for ten cents a ticket).
After my interview with this couple, I felt almost choked up watching Snow White. I couldn't even begin to imagine how incredible seeing a color movie for the first time must've been in a world without color cell phone displays, computer screens, televisions, etc. Soon, though, I'd settled back into my old disdain for this movie. I was embarrassed to find that, at twenty-one, I STILL found the movie disturbing and dark. Snow White is doomed throughout, and the fact that the queen requests her heart in a box (and that the dwarfs later build her a glass coffin...gross) is rather "Law and Order" for a fairy tale adaptation. Further, not to read to much into a thirties-era animated film, but could Snow White get any more helpless? Seriously, she has ZERO ambitions other than falling in love with the prince. ZERO. The Princesses I grew up with at least had some dreams--Ariel had her collection of human things, Belle loved to read, etc, but Snow White is content to wait for a man to come fulfill her entire life purpose. If you think I'm being a fascist feminist about this, I think you need to re-watch the film.

In spite of my jaded 2010 reading of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it is an important film in the history of Disney and of the animated film genre. And, of course, it is the first Disney Princess film! More to come later this week. Next film is Cinderella.