In the 60+ years since the release of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," there have been so many animated feature films that it's difficult to realize how big a risk Walt Disney and his company were taking, how revolutionary a film it was, and what an enormous impact it had, not just on pop culture, but on the world at large. Until the release two years later of "Gone With the Wind," "Snow White" was the top moneymaker of Hollywood movies. Everyone saw it, most more than once; children didn't just embrace it, they absorbed it into their souls.
It prompted MGM to make "The Wizard of Oz," released two years later, but that didn't (initially) do anywhere nearly as well as "Snow White." Disney's following animated features, "Fantasia," "Pinocchio" and "Bambi," were considered major disappointments following "Snow White," which was widely regarded as nearly perfect.
And yet the movie was released less than ten years after Disney's precedent-making short "Steamboat Willie," the first animated cartoon with synchronized sound. In those years, while his brother Roy worked hard to get the growing Disney company the most revenue (authorized toys helped), Walt was a benign overlord to his staff, shaping and guiding their output. He rarely drew anything; he couldn't even sign his name in the stylized "Walt Disney" signature that appeared on all their products. But without him, animation might have remained a quaint sideline of Hollywood, suitable mostly for children, a vehicle primarily for gags and visual jokes. It was Disney himself who saw the possibilities in animation.
He was in his twenties when he began his company; he was barely into his thirties when production began on "Snow White," and his staff was almost entirely composed of eager, imaginative and talented people in their twenties who knew to their bones that Walt was on the right track.
Not only was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" an enormous hit on its initial release, it was reissued again and again down through the years, sometimes again saving the studio from insolvency. This practice of reissuing earlier films with full-fledged promotional campaigns was mostly new to Hollywood, but it became a mainstay of the Disney Company.
This Blu-ray disc should be another bonanza for the company; it's just about as good a package as could be assembled. Some of the extras--most of them, in fact--have been included on previous DVD releases of "Snow White," but that doesn't mean they're unwelcome here. They're genuinely fascinating and amusing, extensive and well-researched, and imaginatively constructed. When "Snow White" was made, the studio was located on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles (a supermarket occupies the site now). The studio had sort of been kludged together out of existing buildings, with further construction throughout the company's stay at this location. One of the best extras is a tour of the Hyperion studios, with amusing, non-extreme caricatures of Walt and his staff, input from survivors of the period, and an entertaining look at what was a cradle of a developing form of art.
Don't underestimate how Disney and his staff were regarded in the 1930s. Disney was seen as a brilliant young entrepreneur, the genius director of a staff of geniuses (this seems to have actually been the case, too). The Disney films were beautiful; many of them by 1937 were in color (though the "funny" cartoons, those featuring Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Donald Duck, et al, were in black and white), awing Depression-era audiences who were not yet accustomed to Technicolor. Almost all of the rival cartoon companies were going full-bore for laughs; Disney wanted more than laughs. That's largely what led to "Snow White."
Would those audiences, accustomed to seven-minute cartoons, even sit all the way through a feature-length animated movie? Was it possible to generate sympathy for characters that were really only ink, color and movement, with disembodied voices? Was Disney headed for ruin?
No, of course not. Or now it seems that "of course" they would succeed. But until the movie's premiere at the wonderful but now gone Carthay Circle theater, no one then really knew. When Disney and his staff looked around at the blue-ribbon, cream-of-the-crop Hollywood audience (stars, directors, executives, etc.) when the dwarfs grieve over Snow White, and all these we've-seen-everything people were crying, it must have been like a bolt of lightning. This premiere is well-covered in the supplemental material.
Does the story need to be outlined? Snow White is a fairy tale princess, working as a scullery maid at the castle presided over by the "Evil Queen" (a stepmother? Or even--gasp--her real mother?) whose main desire is to be the fairest one in the land. Her iconic magic mirror--which has turned up all over the Disney empire since--tells her that no, Snow White is the fairest in the land. (Which seems to consist of the queen, Snow White and a huntsman.) So the queen orders Snow White slain, especially since a passing prince (from another land?) instantly falls in love with Snow White. (Snow White sings "I'm Wishing.")
But the huntsman cannot bring himself to kill this sweet maiden who can literally charm the birds out of the trees. This moment--the hesitation of the huntsman--is well covered in the supplemental material, and an excellent idea of how what now seems to be utterly natural, the only possible way to depict this crisis, had to be worked through literally frame by frame, because nobody had done anything like it before. The entire movie was an innovation, filled with other innovations.
Snow White flees into the nearby forest, increasingly terrified by trees and shrubbery that seem to her to be big-eyed monsters. This is a brilliant sequence, building to a quick climax, and it's exactly the right length. How did the Disney personnel know this was right? They didn't; they were taking yet another chance.
Meanwhile, we've been introduced to the seven dwarfs, who labor everyday in a jewel mine not far away. (What do they do with the jewels they gather? We never know.) They sing their working song, "Heigh Ho," which became a hit. Snow White, partly guided by friendly forest creatures (birds, deer, squirrels, raccoons, etc.), finds the Dwarfs' cottage. She and the animals clean the cottage to "Whistle While You Work," another hit. She befriends the dwarfs, who are instantly smitten--except for grumpy old Grumpy--and she sings to them that "Someday My Prince Will Come." Yes, another hit. Later, in a scene full of great animation, they dance and sing "Isn't This a Silly Song." No, that wasn't a big hit.
Eventually the evil queen learns that Snow White lives, so she transforms herself--a great sequence, largely inspired by the 1932 "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"--into a hideous old crone (another icon), and poisons an apple for Snow White.
The movie was digitally restored several years ago, ending up looking better than it ever had in theaters. The slight registration problems resulting from Technicolor's requirement that three strips of film pass through the camera and printer have been eliminated. An odd, unwanted shimmering effect plaguing the scene in which the prince awakens the poisoned Snow White through love's first kiss, has been eliminated; Disney, who was always bothered by it, would have been thrilled.
The sound is good but it's not showcased; it's a monaural track--given the period, it could hardly be anything else--and it's well rendered. The score and songs are very good, the voices were expertly chosen, but the movie is about how it looks, not how it sounds, although it is a musical. A further note about that: The stage musical "Oklahoma!" (1943) is generally regarded as the first time songs in a play were part of the plot while working as characterization, and were still entertaining and involving, which songs in musicals always are intended to be. The production notes here, however, make it clear that it's actually "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" that began this practice, soon repeated by "The Wizard of Oz."
One reason that it looks better than in theaters is common to all televised images. In theaters, we're looking at light reflecting from a screen; when we're watching television, the images themselves are the SOURCE of light, an intrinsic improvement. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" will probably never look better than it does on this recent set; it's the ideal way to own a film classic.
And it is a classic. Some think it is still the best Disney animated feature, probably because it's so neat and compact--the entire story takes place in less than two days. Every scene advances the plot, every character is interesting (except the insipid prince), many are iconic, especially a few of the Seven Dwarfs. As with a "Fantasia" DVD of a few years ago, the Disney home video department has inventively created a commentary track for the film--by Walt Disney himself. He died in 1966, but throughout his life at the studio, he insisted that everything be saved--drawings, transcriptions of staff meetings, recordings, everything--which has resulted in a treasure of information for archivists and writers. Disney's comments are interspersed with comments more specifically about the movie by John Canemaker.
The extras include a history of Disney (among those appearing, Angela Lansbury and Fess Parker), that great tour of Hyperion, a discussion of the movie's place in show business history, sidebars on the artists responsible--Albert Herter is of special interest, as his Germanic style was enormously influential on the design of the dwarfs and their cottage. All the extras are excellent, all deserve a thorough examination. There are some extras on the Blu-ray disc along with the movie, and more on a second disc. As has become a common practice on the more prestigious Blu-ray releases, a third disc includes a straight digital copy of the movie--that is, a standard DVD.
Studios are mining their own archives for movies to be given the Blu-ray treatment. Sometimes the choices can be mystifying, other times they're obvious (simply the recent releases), and sometimes they're especially worthy of the high definition treatment. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is definitely one of those.
Actors, directors, etc. Walt Disney, David Hand, Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm, Adriana Caselotti
Leave a comment