Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Before I begin with this, I have to make note of how I said I was doing every movie put out by Disney and their subsidiaries. I retract this statement. I made my list and realized that’s well over 1,000 films. Too much for one series. So I’ll break it up into chunks. First it will be Disney Animated Canon, Pixar, Ghibli, and the hybrids. Significantly less.

Anyway, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released December 21, 1937. It was based on the Brothers Grimm tale and was the first full-length cel animated feature film. It made $8 million worldwide.

In a storybook prologue, Snow White is a princess living with her stepmother, she fears Snow White's beauty surpassing hers, and forces her to work as a scullery maid. She asks her Magic Mirror daily "who is the fairest one of all." For several years the mirror always answered that the Queen was. However, as the film opens, the Magic Mirror informs the Queen that Snow White is now the fairest in the land. The Queen orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the forest and kill her, demanding he return with Snow White's heart in a jeweled box. The huntsman encounters Snow White but decides not to harm her. He begs for her forgiveness, reveals the Queen wants her dead, and urges her to flee into the woods and never come back, bringing back a pig's heart instead. 

Running through the woods lost and frightened, the princess is befriended by woodland creatures who lead her to a cottage deep int he woods. Finding seven small chairs in the cottage's dining room, Snow White assumes the cottage is the untidy home of seven orphaned children. It soon becomes apparent that the cottage instead belongs to seven adult dwarfs: Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey, who work in a nearby mine. Returning home, they are alarmed to find their cottage clean and surmise that an intruder has invaded their home. The dwarfs find Snow White upstairs, asleep across three of their beds. Snow White awakes to find the Dwarfs at her bedside and introduces herself, and all of the dwarfs eventually welcome her into their home after they learn she can cook and clean. She keeps house for the dwarfs while they mine for jewels and at night sing, play music, and dance.

Meanwhile the Queen discovers that Snow White is still alive when the mirror again answers that Snow White is the fairest int he land. Using magic to disguise herself as an old hag, the Queen creates a poisoned apple, explaining that Snow White would collapse into a magical sleep if she were to take even a single bite of the apple. The sleep can only be cured by the power of "loves first kiss." the Queen reasons that this is no danger to her plans as the dwarfs would not be able to awaken Snow White and would think she was dead, resulting in her being buried alive. The Queen goes to the cottage while the dwarfs are away and tricks Snow White into biting the poisoned apple. As Snow White falls asleep, the Queen proclaims that she will be the fairest of the land. The dwarfs are alerted by the woodland animals who recognize the queen, chase her off a cliff and trap her. She tries to roll a boulder over them, but before she can do so, lightning strikes the cliff, causing her to fall to her death.

The dwarfs return to their cottage and find Snow White seemingly dead, being kept in a deathlike slumber by the poison. Unwilling to bury her out of sight in the ground, they instead place her in a glass coffin trimmed with gold in a clearing in the forest. Together with the woodland creatures, they keep watch over her in an "eternal vigil." After some time, a prince who had previously met and fallen in love with Snow White, learns of her eternal sleep and visits her coffin. Saddened by her apparent death, he kisses her, which breaks the spell and awakens her. The dwarfs and animals all rejoice as the Prince takes Snow White to his castle, which glows in her presence.

It’s honestly a good movie, especially for its time. While the visuals aren’t anything to write home about today, they were the best looking in 1937, especially since this was the first animated feature ever. The soundtrack is pretty good too. Granted, Adriana Caselotti’s singing might be a little ear shattering, but they’re still good songs. With well-remembered songs such as I’m Wishing, Whistle While You Work, Heigh Ho and Someday my Prince Will Come, it’s a solid soundtrack. In regards to characterization, it’s the dwarfs that save it. Especially Grumpy, who ends up softening towards the end of the film, because Character Development is always a good thing. Other than that, the evil queen is evil, the prince shows up at the beginning and end and Snow White… exists.

The story is good too, but then, if anyone doesn’t know the Disney version of Snow White, then they don’t deserve to have internet. I haven’t read the original fairy tale, but I do know the Queen is made to dance in red hot shoes. Makes me want to read it. Anyway, the one problem: Why do they encase her in a glass coffin instead of burying her? I know it’s because they don’t want to bury her because they won’t see her anymore, but still you ever see a corpse after a few days?

Final Call: Fun film with great music, a good story and lively secondary characters. It obviously starts off as #1 and breaks the Edge of Enjoyment