Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
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Supervising Director: David Hand
Starring: Adriana Caselotti, Lucille La Verne
Honors:
In the early years decades of cinema animated cartoons were
more simply viewed as a novelty that ran as a small piece in a lineup of other
shorts, newsreels that commonly preceded a feature or filled time in-between
two features. They were looked upon as
no more than just a time for a quick laugh that entertained audiences in short
spurts. In 1937 all preconceived notions of animations as a silly medium of
entertainment would change when Walt Disney willed into being the first American
full-length animated feature Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs. (I use “American,” because there were at least two
other animated features which were of far lesser note and lost in time.) Since
his conception of the idea to make the picture way back in 1934 Hollywood’s
brass and insiders would refer to the project as “Disney’s folly,” a notion
that would never work in theaters, but the small animated studio led by its
imaginative creator would put all these words to rest as he would bring all of
industry to its feet making it the most successful picture ever up to that
point. Walt Disney’s Christmas present to the world in December 1937, Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, would be a
treasured classic of all time.
Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs is an animation of the Brothers Grimm tale with an evil queen
attempting to kill a young princess to be “the fairest of them all,” and with
the help from her seven new friends and true love’s first kiss good defeats all
evil. The sorcerer queen with her delusions of grandeur goes so far to be the
most adored woman in all the land that she attempts to kill the beautiful,
young princess, Snow White, the fairest of them all. As Snow White flees from
the queen she comes across the home of seven small men, becoming a mother
figure to the messy, comic bunch, winning the group by her loving kindness in
turn giving her a place to stay. The queen disguises herself as an old peddler
woman who gives Snow White a poisoned apple that would put the princess into a
deathly, deep sleep. The dwarfs would stop the queen from getting away, only
too late to discover Snow White in her comatose state. Time passes and the
dwarfs hold a constant vigil over Snow White when true loves first kiss comes
from Prince Charming, awakening Snow White, and they live happily ever after.
Hollywood had much to say about the Walt Disney’s attempt to
bring a full length feature animation to theaters. Many said it would not work.
Others said the Technicolor cartoon would hurt people’s eyes. Some said no one
would be emotionally attached to a cartoon character. Simply, Hollywood denied
the idea of ever seeing the success of Disney’s risky venture.
Walt Disney was visionary of a man who never settled for the
status quo. Bankrupt by the age of 20 and ripped away from a star character,
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, whom he created while working for Universal, Disney
had more than enough reasons to be discouraged, but with the creation of a
little mouse named Mickey Walt Disney found new ground to further himself.
Wildly creative, with the help of his brother Roy, who would help run the
finances of the company leaving Walt only to worry about what he wished to
create, Walt would innovate of the industry.
The Mickey Mouse short Steamboat
Willie would be the first animation with synchronized sound. Playing with
sound Disney created the Silly Symphony series, cartoons that played to the
tune of a song, where the music enhanced the visuals and the visuals enhanced
the music. He would sign an exclusive deal with Technicolor to be the first to
produce his cartoons in brilliant color. The
Three Little Pigs, a musical short based on the popular children’s tale,
would become wildly successful with an equally popular song “Who’s Afraid of
the Big Bad Wolf,” which matched emotions of depression era audiences. Further
innovating, his creative technicians built the multi-plane camera, a camera
that moved elements of the photographed animated cells to produce a
life-mimicking dimensionality to his animations. His cartoons would feel different with a more
life to them. His characters had personality. Walt Disney was the finest
animation studio in all the business.
Like many filmmakers before his Disney knew he could not
stand still doing the same thing year after year. Following in the footsteps of
other such filmmakers such as Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy Disney knew
he had to move from shorts to full length features to stay in the business.
Centering on quality Disney’s shorts cost a larger sum of money compared to
other studios cartoons, and not being necessarily a good businessman he took
less money to make them. After the many evolutionary points in the animated process
and having a deep love for good storytelling Walt Disney made the statement he
was to produce a full length feature, using his shorts as practice to perfect
animation for the fantastic tale he was going to produce.
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| La Verne would inspire the look of the old woman from a past film |
Knowing it was not as simple as making a bunch of drawings
and throwing a voice into the soundtrack, Disney’s care for quality brought
many years of studying to perfect the final feature. He would search for the
right voices, with the primary character of Snow White coming from the daughter
of a vocal couch, Adriana Caselotti. With her child-like innocent voice, she
would serve as both voice and model of Snow White, acting out the scenes on
camera for animators to reference her movements. Veteran stage actress with
some film work Lucille La Verne was chosen for her regal voice as the queen,
doubling as the old woman she transformed into with her skilled voice control
and the trick of removing her dentures to muffle he speak pattern. A keen eye
can see inspirations of the visuals of the old lady from La Verne’s performance
in The Tale of Two Cities.
Disney would be very protective of his star voice actor in
Snow White holding the young Adriana Caselotti from interviews and other film
work in order to not ruin the illusion of the title character in the film.
Disney’s mind would seem somewhat overprotective, but his genius of controlling
what was revealed to the audience is what made him and his pictures so very
popular, as they seemed so much more engrossing, taking audiences to a far off
world away from the real life scenarios around them.
Many other characters were played by comedians, Disney voice
actors including Pinto Colvig who voiced the popular character in many shorts
by the name of Goofy, and singers. Disney had his animators study and references
these real people for their movements and gestures, bringing to life the
characters as animation had never seen before.
Disney, his writers, and directors, supervised by David
Hand, would take the classic tale and make it fit into the story palatable for
the screen. The dwarfs, originally nameless and working more or less as a
singular unit in the original story, were each given a distinct personality and
characteristics that would provide comedy and emotion that made them each
memorable to audiences. From a list of 50 or more names the writers finally
decided on the final seven. Of the seven the most memorable would be Dopey, who
would share a likeness in spirit to an innocent Harpo Marx-like mute character,
and the stern Grumpy, who acts as a old man who dislikes the change with adding
Snow White into their home, but whose tears at the death of Snow White would
make many break out into tears of their own.
The Disney Studio spent four years of work and studying to
produce the film. Walt opened an after-hours art class in the studio to teach
his animators to perfect the art of animation. In the pinch, however, the
animators did have to resort to rotoscope, where animators track the images of
actors on film to animate, in order to finish the picture on time for the
release date. The animation includes life-like movement. Referencing real life actions
and movements with the multi-plane camera would blur the line of reality even
though it was an animation, creating sweeping camera movements that real camera
crews could only dream of. The animation was such a huge breakthrough for the
medium that it would be likened to D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation in impact on the movies.
So much of Walt Disney and his studio was wrapped up into
the picture that it took every last dime to produce it. If it failed, Disney
and the studio would go under. No finances was even left to even promote the
film, leaving animators scrambling to staple simple signs on telephone poles to
get the word out before the premiere.
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| Walt Disney presented his Honorary Oscars by Shirley Temple |
On December 21, 1937 the picture would play for the first
time in Hollywood and all of the industries brightest would come out to see the
cartoon. Audiences laughed, cried, and fell in love with the picture. Critics
praised it as the finest picture. Russian filmmaker Sergie Eisenstein commended
it as the best film of all time. Snow
White and Seven Dwarfs would be a massive attraction and became the
greatest grossing film of all time (only to lose the title the in 1939 to Gone with the Wind). Word spread and accolades
abound for Walt Disney and his masterpiece. Walt would be featured on Time
Magazine soon after the release and at the Academy Awards would be the
recipient of an honorary award for his work in motion picture excellence, with
one large statue along with seven smaller statues revealed by one of
Hollywood’s biggest names, child actor Shirley Temple.
With the profits Walt Disney would build himself a brand new
studio to expand his future productions. The studio would move from the cramped
quarters in Silver Lake to its spacious, campus-like location in Burbank, and
the many feature film ideas that were considered forthe story of the first full
length animated feature would flesh out in future projects for the studio for
decades to come, including Alice in
Wonderland, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, and even The Little Mermaid.
Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs literally built the
studio and in coming years would save it again. In the leaner years of World
War II Disney would re-release the picture to make new profits for the studio
on a favorite that was already “in the can,” aiding to bring in finances after stagnant
years due to the world crisis. This would be a common practice for the studio
with Snow White and many of its
features, re-releasing favorites in theaters for decades until the advent of
home video.
Snow White would
be a success on a new level not explored before. The film would be the first to
feature a soundtrack album that could be purchased by the public, making for a
world of new income for motion pictures in merchandising. “Some Day My Prince
Will Come” would become wildly popular and covered by many artists, especially
during the jazz era of music. The American Film Institute would name it the 19th
greatest original song in American cinema history.
Generations would go by and Snow White still stands as a milestone and measuring stick for all
animated features to come since. Its title would be seen all over many all-time
lists, including AFI’s top American films of all time as well as being hailed
as the finest animated feature of all, a true honor as it was the first and
continued by many to still be the greatest. It would be the first animated
feature to be named to the National Film Registry in 1994. Snow White would
continued to be honored for many, many decades as an all-time beloved classic.
The story and its animation style would come to be perceived as cliché as a
Disney princess movie, even by its own studio, but it is all in honor of a
remarkable achievement in cinema history with leagues of audiences being drawn
in by these drawings that gripped and entertained untold millions.
But remember, with all of this picture’s success Walt Disney
was not stand still. There were brave new worlds he would expand into in the
coming years. This would include: further perfecting and expanding animation,
moving into live action features, exploring the world in nature documentaries
never imagined, the creation of the new medium of theme parks, and the idea of
urban planning and innovation. The man was a wildly creative person, and though
it did start with a mouse, Snow White
brought Walt Disney Pictures into a new maturity.
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