Stuart Buchanan as The Huntsman: Despite his status as the Queen\'s assassin, the Huntsman cannot bear to kill Snow White, even when the Queen orders him to take the princess\'s on SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarfs began in early 1934, and in June 1934,Walt Disney announced the production of his first feature, to bereleased under Walt Disney Productions, to The New York Times.One evening that same year, Disney acted out the entire story of SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarfs to his staff, announcing that the filmwould be produced as a feature-length film.
Before Snow White andthe Seven Dwarfs, the Disney studio had been primarily involvedin the production of animated short subjects in the Mickey Mouseand Silly Symphonies series. Disney hoped to expand hisstudio\'s prestige and revenues by moving into features, and estimatedthat Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs could be produced for abudget of US$250,000; this was ten times the budget of an averageSilly Symphony.
Snow White and the SevenDwarfs was to be the first full-length cel animated feature inmotion picture history, and as such Walt Disney had to fight to getthe film produced. Both his brother and business partner Roy Disneyand his wife Lillian attempted to talk him out of it, and theHollywood movie industry referred to the film derisively as \"Disney\'sFolly\" while it was in production. He had to mortgage his houseto help finance the film\'s production, which eventually ran up atotal cost of $1,488,422.74, a massive sum for a feature film in1937.
StorydevelopmentOn August 9, 1934,twenty-one pages of notes—entitled \"Snowwhitesuggestions\"—were compiled by staff writer Richard Creedon,suggesting the principal characters, as well as situations and \'gags\'for the story. As Disney had stated at the very beginning of theproject, the main attraction of the story for him was the SevenDwarfs, and their possibilities for \"screwiness\" and\"gags\"; the three story meetings held in October andattended by Disney, Creedon, Larry Morey, Albert Hurter, Ted Searsand Pinto Colvig were dominated by such subjects. At this point,Disney felt that the story should begin with Snow White\'s discoveryof the Cottage of the Seven Dwarfs. Walt Disney had suggested fromthe beginning that each of the dwarfs, whose names and personalitiesare not stated in the original fairy tale, could have individualpersonalities. The dwarfs names were chosen from a pool of aboutfifty potentials, including Jumpy, Deafy, Dizzey, Hickey, Wheezy,Baldy, Gabby, Nifty, Sniffy, Swift, Lazy, Puffy, Stuffy, Tubby,Shorty, and Burpy. The seven finalists were chosen through a processof elimination. The leader of the dwarfs, required to be pompous,self-important and bumbling, was named Doc; others were named fortheir distinguishing character traits. At the end of the Octoberstory meetings, however, only Doc, Grumpy, Bashful, Sleepy and Happyof the final seven were named; at this point, Sneezy and Dopey werereplaced by \'Jumpy\' and an unnamed seventh dwarf.
Along with a focus on thecharacterizations and comedic possibilities of the dwarfs, Creedon\'seighteen-page outline of the story written from the October meetings,featured a continuous flow of gags as well as the Queen\'s attempt tokill Snow White with a poisoned comb, an element taken from theGrimms\' original story. After persuading Snow White to use the comb,the disguised Queen would have escaped alive, but the dwarfs wouldhave arrived in time to remove it. After the failure of the comb, theQueen was to have the Prince captured and taken to her dungeon, whereshe would have come to him (story sketches show this event both withthe Queen and the Witch) and used magic to bring the dungeon\'sskeletons to life, making them dance for him and identifying oneskeleton as \"Prince Oswald\", an example of the morehumorous atmosphere of this original story treatment. It is writtenin story notes that the Queen has such magical power only in her owndomain, the castle. With the Prince refusing to marry her, the Queenleaves him to his death (one sketch shows the Prince trapped in asubterranean chamber filling with water) as she makes her way to thedwarfs\' cottage with the poisoned apple. The forest animals were tohelp the Prince escape the Queen\'s minions and find his horse. ThePrince was to ride to the cottage to save Snow White but took thewrong road (despite warnings from the forest animals and his horse,whom he, unlike Snow White, could not understand). He, therefore,would not have arrived in time to save her from the Queen but wouldhave been able to save her with love\'s first kiss. This plot was notused in the final film, though many sketches of the scene in thedungeon were made by Ferdinand Hovarth.
Other examples of the morecomical nature of the story at this point include suggestions for a\"fat, batty, cartoon type, self-satisfied\" Queen. ThePrince was also more of a clown, and was to serenade Snow White in amore comical fashion. Walt Disney encouraged all staff at the studioto contribute to the story, offering five dollars for every \'gag\';such gags included the dwarfs\' noses popping over the foot of the bedwhen they first meet Snow White.
Disney became concernedthat such a comical approach would lessen the plausibility of thecharacters and, sensing that more time was needed for the developmentof the Queen, advised in an outline circulated on November 6 thatattention be paid exclusively to \"scenes in which only SnowWhite, the Dwarfs, and their bird and animal friends appear\".The names and personalities of the dwarfs, however, were still \"opento change\". A meeting of November 16 resulted in another outlineentitled \'Dwarfs Discover Snowwhite\', which introduced the characterof Dopey, who would ultimately prove to be the most successful andpopular of the dwarf characterisations. For the rest of 1934 Disneyfurther developed the story by himself, finding a dilemma in thecharacterization of the Queen, who he felt could no longer be \"fat\"and \"batty\", but a \"stately beautiful type\", apossibility already brought up in previous story meetings. Disney didnot focus on the project again until the autumn of 1935. It isthought that he may have doubted his, and his studio\'s ability, andthat his trip to Europe that summer restored his confidence. At thispoint, Disney and his writers focused on the scenes in which SnowWhite and the dwarfs are introduced to the audience and each other.He laid out the likely assignments for everyone working on the filmin a memorandum of November 25, 1935, and had decided on thepersonalities of the individual dwarfs.
It had first been thoughtthat the dwarfs would be the main focus of the story, and manysequences were written for the seven characters. However, at acertain point, it was decided that the main thrust of the story wasprovided by the relationship between the Queen and Snow White. Forthis reason, several sequences featuring the dwarfs were cut from thefilm. The first, which was animated in its entirety before being cut,showed Doc and Grumpy arguing about whether Snow White should staywith them. Another, also completely animated, would have shown thedwarfs eating soup noisily and messily; Snow White unsuccessfullyattempts to teach them how to eat \'like gentlemen\'. A partiallyanimated sequence involved the dwarfs holding a \"lodge meeting\"in which they try to think of a gift for Snow White; this was to befollowed by the elaborate \'bed building sequence\', in which thedwarfs and the forest animals construct and carve a bed for theprincess. This also was cut, as it was thought to slow down themovement of the story. The soup-eating and bed-building sequenceswere animated by Ward Kimball, who was sufficiently discouraged bytheir removal to consider leaving the studio, however Disneypersuaded him to stay by promoting him to supervising animator ofJiminy Cricket in his next feature Pinocchio (1940).
AnimationThe primary authority onthe design of the film was concept artist Albert Hurter. All designsused in the film, from characters\' appearances to the look of therocks in the background, had to meet Hurter\'s approval before beingfinalized. Two other concept artists — Ferdinand Hovarth and GustafTenggren — also contributed to the visual style of Snow Whiteand the Seven Dwarfs. Hovarth developed a number of dark conceptsfor the film, although many other designs he developed wereultimately rejected by the Disney team as less easily translated intoanimation than Hurter\'s. Tenggren was used as a color stylist and todetermine the staging and atmosphere of many of the scenes in thefilm, as his style borrowed from the likes of Arthur Rackham and JohnBauer and thus possessed the European illustration quality that WaltDisney sought. He also designed the posters for the film andillustrated the press book. However, Hovarth didn\'t receive a creditfor the film. Other artists to work on the film included Joe Grant,whose most significant contribution was the design for the Queen\'sWitch form.
Don Graham really knew whathe was teaching, and he \"showed\" you how to do something –he didn\'t just talk. He taught us things that were very important foranimation. How to simplify our drawings – how to cut out all theunnecessary hen scratching amateurs have a habit of using. He showedus how to make a drawing look solid. He taught us about tensionpoints – like a bent knee, and how the pant leg comes down fromthat knee and how important the wrinkles from it are to describeform. I learned a hell of a lot from him!
Art Babbitt
Art Babbit, an animator whojoined the Disney studio in 1932, invited seven of his colleagues(who worked in the same room as him) to come with him to an art classthat he himself had set up at his home in the Hollywood Hills. Thoughthere was no teacher, Babbit had recruited a model to pose for himand his fellow animators as they drew. These \"classes\" wereheld weekly; each week, more animators would come. After three weeks,Walt Disney called Babbit to his office and offered to provide thesupplies, working space and models required if the sessions weremoved to the studio. Babbit ran the sessions for a month untilanimator Hardie Gramatky suggested that they recruit Don Graham; theart teacher from the Chouinard Institute taught his first class atthe studio on November 15, 1932, and was joined by Phil Dike a fewweeks later. These classes were principally concerned with humananatomy and movement, though instruction later included actionanalysis, animal anatomy and acting.
The first duty of thecartoon is not to picture or duplicate real action or things as theyactually happen—but to give a caricature of life and action—topicture on the screen things that have run thru the imagination ofthe audience to bring to life dream-fantasies and imaginative fanciesthat we have all thought of during our lives or have had pictured tous in various forms during our lives [...] I definitely feel that wecannot do the fantastic things, based on the real, unless we firstknow the real. This point should be brought out very clearly to allnew men, and even the older men.
Walt Disney in 1935
Though the classes wereoriginally described as a \"brutal battle\", with neitherinstructor nor students well-versed in the other\'s craft, theenthusiasm and energy of both parties made the classes stimulatingand beneficial for all involved. Graham often screened Disney shortsand, along with the animators, provided critique featuring bothstrengths and weaknesses. For example, Graham criticised Babbit\'sanimation of Abner the mouse in The Country Cousin as \"takinga few of the obvious actions of a drunk without coordinating the restof the body\", while praising it for maintaining its humourwithout getting \"dirty or mean or vulgar. The country mouse isalways having a good time\".
Very few of the animatorsat the Disney studio had had artistic training (most had beennewspaper cartoonists); among these few was Grim Natwick, who hadtrained in Europe. The animator\'s success in designing and animatingBetty Boop for Fleischer Studios showed an understanding of humanfemale anatomy, and when Walt Disney hired Natwick he was givenfemale characters to animate almost exclusively. Attempts to animatePersephone, the female lead of The Goddess of Spring, hadproved largely unsuccessful; Natwick\'s animation of the heroine inCookie Carnival showed greater promise, and the animator waseventually given the task of animating Snow White herself. Thoughlive action footage of Snow White, the Prince and the Queen was shotas reference for the animators, the artists\' animators disapproved ofrotoscoping, considering it to hinder the production of effectivecaricature. None of Babbit\'s animation of the Queen was rotoscoped;despite Graham and Natwick\'s objections, however, some scenes of SnowWhite and the Prince were directly traced from the live-actionfootage.
It proved difficult to addcolor to Snow White\'s and the queen\'s face.. Eventually they found ared dye that worked, and which was added with a small piece of cottonwrapped around a tipple pencil on each individual cel. Helen Ogger,an employee at the ink department, was also an animator and decidedto use the same system used in animation. The method was so timeconsuming that it was never used again on the same scale. It was alsoused to a smaller degree in \"Pinocchio\" and \"Fantasia\",but after Ogger left the studio in 1941 there were nobody with thesame skills who could replace her.
The studio\'s new multiplanecamera gave a three-dimensional feeling in many sequences and wasalso used to give a rotating effect in the scene where the Queentransforms into a witch.
MusicThe songs in Snow Whiteand the Seven Dwarfs were composed by Frank Churchill and LarryMorey. Paul J. Smith and Leigh Harline composed the incidental musicscore. Well-known songs from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfsinclude \"Heigh-Ho\", \"Some Day My Prince Will Come\",and \"Whistle While You Work\". Since Disney did not have itsown music publishing company at the time, the publishing rights forthe music and songs were administered through Bourne Co. MusicPublishers, which continues to hold these rights. In later years, thestudio was able to acquire back the rights to the music from many ofthe other films, but not Snow White. Snow White becamethe first American film to have a soundtrack album, released inconjunction with the feature film. Before Snow White and the SevenDwarfs, a film soundtrack recording was unheard of and of littlevalue to a movie studio.
CinematicinfluencesAt this time, Disney alsoencouraged his staff to see a variety of films. These ranged from themainstream, such as MGM\'s Romeo and Juliet (1936)—to whichDisney made direct reference in a story meeting pertaining to thescene in which Snow White lies in her glass coffin—to the moreobscure, including European silent cinema. Snow White and theSeven Dwarfs, as well as the two Disney films to follow it, werealso influenced by such German expressionist films as Nosferatu(1922) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), both of whichwere recommended by Disney to his staff. This influence isparticularly evident in the scenes of Snow White fleeing through theforest and the Queen\'s transformation into the Witch. The latterscene was also inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), towhich Disney made specific reference in story meetings.
ReleaseOriginaltheatrical runSnow White and the SevenDwarfs premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre on December 21,1937, to a wildly receptive audience, many of whom were the samenaysayers who had dubbed the film \"Disney\'s Folly\". Thefilm received a standing ovation at its completion from an audiencethat included Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton.Six days later, Walt Disney and the seven dwarfs appeared on thecover of Time magazine. The New York Times said, \"Thankyou very much, Mr. Disney\". The American entertainment tradepublication Variety observed that \"[so] perfect is theillusion, so tender the romance and fantasy, so emotional are certainportions when the acting of the characters strikes a depth comparableto the sincerity of human players, that the film approaches realgreatness.\"
Following successfulexclusive runs at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and atheater in Miami in January 1938, RKO Radio Pictures put the filminto general release on February 4. It became a major box-officesuccess, earning four times more money than any other motion picturereleased in 1938. Snow White proved equally popular withforeign audiences. In September 1938—seven months after the film\'snationwide release in the United States—Variety alsoreported that the animated feature was having a remarkably longbox-office run at theaters in Sydney, Australia. In that city itnoted, \"Walt Disney\'s \'Snow White\' (RKO) experienced nodifficulty at hitting 11 weeks, with more ahead.\" Varietyreported as well that Snow White was having even longer runsin other cities overseas, such as in London, where the film hadgenerated greater box-office receipts than during its exclusive NewYork screenings at Radio City Music Hall:
\'Snow White\' (RKO)is in its 27th week at the New Gallery, London, and will continue tobe shown through the regular London release dates, Sept. 19 for NorthLondon, and Sept. 26 for South London. There is a likelihood that theNew Gallery first-run will run until Christmas. Picture reported tohave exceeded $500,000, passing Radio City\'s five-week mark, whichjust fell short of the $500,000 mark. In total revenue during itsoriginal release, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs grossed $3.5million in the United States and Canada, and by May 1939 its grossinternationally amounted to $6.5 million, making it the mostsuccessful sound film of all time, displacing Al Jolson\'s TheSinging Fool (1928) (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs wassoon displaced from this position by Gone with the Wind in1940). By the end of its original run, Snow White and the SevenDwarfs had earned $7,846,000 in international box officereceipts. This earned RKO a profit of $380,000.
Re-releasesSnow White and the SevenDwarfs was first re-released in 1944, to raise revenue for theDisney studio during the World War II period. This re-release set atradition of re-releasing Disney animated features every seven to 10years, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was re-released totheaters in 1952, 1958, 1967, 1975, 1983, 1987 and 1993. Coincidingwith the 50th-anniversary release in 1987, Disney released anauthorized novelization of the story, written by children\'s authorSuzanne Weyn.
In 1993, Snow White andthe Seven Dwarfs became the first film to be entirely scanned todigital files, manipulated, and recorded back to film. Therestoration project was carried out entirely at 4K resolution and10-bit color depth using the Cineon system to digitally remove dirtand scratches.
Snow White and the SevenDwarfs has had a lifetime gross of $418 million across itsoriginal release and several reissues. Adjusted for inflation, andincorporating subsequent releases, the film still registers one ofthe top-10 American film moneymakers of all time.
ReceptionThe film was a tremendouscritical success, with many reviewers hailing it as a genuine work ofart, recommended for both children and adults. Although filmhistories often state that the animation of the human characters wascriticized, more recent scholarship finds that most reviewers praisedthe realistic style of the human animation, with several stating thataudiences will forget that they are watching animated humans ratherthan real ones. At the 11th Academy Awards, the film won an AcademyHonorary Award for Walt Disney \"as a significant screeninnovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great newentertainment field\". Disney received a full-size Oscarstatuette and seven miniature ones, presented to him by 10-year-oldchild actress Shirley Temple. The film was also nominated for BestMusical Score. \"Some Day My Prince Will Come\" has become ajazz standard that has been performed by numerous artists, includingBuddy Rich, Lee Wiley, Oscar Peterson, Frank Churchill, and OliverJones. Albums by Miles Davis, by Wynton Kelly, and Alexis Cole.
Noted filmmakers such asSergei Eisenstein and Charlie Chaplin praised Snow White and theSeven Dwarfs as a notable achievement in cinema; Eisenstein wentso far as to call it the greatest film ever made. The film inspiredMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer to produce its own fantasy film, The Wizard ofOz, in 1939. Another animation pioneer, Max Fleischer, decided toproduce his animated feature film Gulliver\'s Travels in orderto compete with Snow White. The 1943 Merrie Melodiesshort Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, directed by BobClampett, parodies Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs bypresenting the story with an all-black cast singing a jazz score.
Snow White\'s successled to Disney moving ahead with more feature-film productions. WaltDisney used much of the profits from Snow White and the SevenDwarfs to finance a new $4.5 million studio in Burbank – thelocation on which The Walt Disney Studios is located to this day.Within two years, the studio completed Pinocchio and Fantasiaand had begun production on features such as Dumbo, Bambi,Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan.
American Film Institute recognition The American Film Institute(AFI), an independent non-profit organization created in the UnitedStates by the National Endowment for the Arts, releases a variety ofannual awards and film lists recognizing excellence in filmmaking.The AFI 100 Years... series, which ran from 1998 to 2008, createdcategorized lists of America\'s best movies as selected by juriescomposed from among over 1,500 artists, scholars, critics, andhistorians. A film\'s inclusion in one of these lists was based on thefilm\'s popularity over time, historical significance and culturalimpact. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was selected by juriesfor inclusion on many AFI lists, including the following:
AFI\'s 100 Years... 100 Movies – No. 49
AFI\'s 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – No. 34
AFI\'s 10 Top 10 – No. 1 Animated film
AFI\'s 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains: The Queen – No. 10 Villain
AFI\'s 100 Years... 100 Songs:
HomemediaOn October 28, 1994, thefilm was released for the first time on home video on VHS andLaserDisc as the first release in the Walt Disney MasterpieceCollection. By 1995, the film had sold 24 million home video unitsand grossed $430 million. As of 2002, the film sold 25.1 million homevideo units in the United States.
Snow White and the SevenDwarfs was released on DVD on October 9, 2001, the first inDisney\'s Platinum Editions, and featured, across two discs, thedigitally restored film, a making-of documentary narrated by AngelaLansbury, an audio commentary by John Canemaker and, via archivedaudio clips, Walt Disney. A VHS release followed on November 27,2001. Both versions were returned to the Disney Vault on January 31,2002. As of 2001, the film grossed a combined $1.1 billion from boxoffice and home video revenue.
Snow White and the SevenDwarfs was released on Blu-ray on October 6, 2009, the first ofDisney\'s Diamond Editions, and a new DVD edition was released onNovember 24, 2009. The Blu-ray includes a high-definition version ofthe movie sourced from a new restoration by Lowry Digital, a DVD copyof the film, and several bonus features not included on the 2001 DVD.This set returned to the Disney Vault on April 30, 2011.
Walt Disney Studios HomeEntertainment re-released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs onBlu-ray and DVD on February 2, 2016, as the first of the Walt DisneySignature Collection Line. It was released on Digital HD on January19, 2016, with bonus material.
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