Review: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The virtuous and beautiful Snow White (voiced by Adriana Caselotti) is targeted for death by the jealous Queen (voiced by Lucille La Verne) who orders a huntsman to kill her. Unfortunately, the huntsman has a conscience and Snow White flees into the woods. There she stops by a small house that is home to seven dwarves. They welcome her into their home (begrudgingly in Grumpy’s case), but when the Queen finds out that Snow White has escaped death, she decides to take matters into her own hands. Oh and there’s a handsome prince in here somewhere, too.

 

Time has obviously aged this 1937 film, the first Walt Disney animated feature length film, but not nearly as much as it probably ought to. It’s still an amazing achievement for its time and a really, really lovely film even today. It may not be as great as “Pinocchio”, but I’d still place it a healthy third in Disney animated stakes behind “Peter Pan”, and just ahead of the underrated “Robin Hood”.

 

The film really only has one thing holding it back, but it’s a pretty big thing: Disney’s first princess, Snow White herself (and the Prince too). Voice artist Adriana Caselotti sounds unnervingly like a 12 year-old girl, making things creepy to watch (Apparently the character is meant to be 14. Gee, that’s a whole lot better isn’t it? Yikes…). Her singing voice for the character is even worse, she’s ghastly, despite apparently being classically trained (The guy singing for The Prince is a bit too warbly for my tastes, too but vastly superior to Caselotti). The character animation on Snow White herself has also dated very badly. How is it that the animation department could get it so right with the Wicked Queen, The Mirror, and the Seven Dwarfs, but so blandly wrong with Snow White and her prince? The character animation on those two seems half-realised and cheapjack in comparison to everything and everyone else. Then again, I’ve read comments from lots of people who think Snow White looks beautiful, so there you go. The character of Snow White seems so bubble-headed to the point of insipidness. The character isn’t as passive as say, Sleeping Beauty, but she just can’t help but fall asleep in a stranger’s house (She’s a bit like Goldilocks in that regard). How does this girl not just float away? She’s really that vacant up top! However, this was 1937 and Disney’s first crack, so I think some leeway should be given. Less so with The Prince, who is barely even existent in the film. So those are definite problems with the film, excusable as some of those are for the time in which this film was made, they nonetheless keep this from being even better than it is.

 

And boy is it still a good film. In fact, as sketchy as the character of The Prince is (apparently due to the animators inability to render him effectively), one of the film’s strengths is that there isn’t a single wasted moment in it. It contains pretty much everything it really needs to in order to entertain, if not perhaps everything it needs to make it even better. For a film with musical interludes (and a grouchy reviewer who hates musicals) that’s saying something. It’s a very swiftly told film, and whilst it may not have a lot of depth, at least it doesn’t have any dead spots. Meanwhile, The Wicked Queen is easily one of Disney’s greatest villains, and if you ask me, she’s hotter than Snow White. It’s true! Snow White is way to pre-pubescent for me, I’m afraid. The Wicked Queen, however, is all woman. In all seriousness, though, I’d place The Wicked Queen just below Captain Hook in “Peter Pan”, Prince John from “Robin Hood”, and Maleficent from “Sleeping Beauty” in the Disney villain stakes. That’s strong company, with Cruella De Vil from “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” not far behind, either. Her old crone disguise is suitably horrid, and overall she’s a truly iconic screen villain never to be forgotten. Stealing at least the first half of the film, however, are the Seven Dwarfs, perhaps the first instance of Disney animation’s comic relief sidekick characters. They’re mostly pretty distinct personalities and character animations, too, though occasionally when they interact with Snow White there appears to be a few Bashfuls. Otherwise, you’re in little doubt who is who (In the original tale, they aren’t assigned names or individuality), it’s a little like the caricatured but effective approach on TV’s “The Smurfs”. Dopey in particular stands out with his pantomiming slapstick, he’s better at being Harpo Marx than Harpo himself, if you ask me. He’s adorable, meanwhile Bashful reminds me of one of my favourite Looney Tunes characters, Beaky Buzzard, who I could never work out whether he was shy or stupid (or both), but with a touch of Goofy’s voice. It really does amaze me that in 1937, Disney did a better job at differentiating between the seven dwarves (or dwarfs as it is spelled here) than Peter Jackson did with all those dwarves in the “Hobbit” trilogy in the current decade. The dwarves also get the best songs in the film, though Snow White’s ‘Whistle While You Work’ is a good song, despite the toddler singing it.

 

Getting back to the animation, I don’t normally like animated films with a storybook/painting-style look to the backgrounds, but here it works because it doesn’t jar with the character animation. In fact, the backgrounds are still fairly detailed and beautiful, more detailed than the Snow White character animation to be honest.

 

A really lovely film that holds up fairly well given it was Disney’s first attempt at feature animation. It’s a great story simply and swiftly told, and features some wonderful supporting characters and beautiful images. The central lovers don’t impress much, either through animation or character depth, but otherwise this is definitely one of Disney’s best. The film was directed by ‘Supervising Director’ David Hand (“Bambi”), whilst ‘Sequence Direction’ was handled by William Cottrell (“Pinocchio”, “Alice in Wonderland”), Wilfred Jackson (“Cinderella”, “Alice in Wonderland”, “Peter Pan”), Larry Morey (co-screenwriter of “Bambi”), Perce Pearce (co-screenwriter of “Bambi”), and Ben Sharpsteen (“Pinocchio”, “Dumbo”). The Grimm fairy tale was adapted by Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Dick Rickard, Otto Englander (“Fantasia”, “Pinocchio”), Earl Hurd (primarily an animator), Ted Sears (“Pinocchio”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Cinderella”, “Alice in Wonderland”), and Webb Smith (“Fantasia”, “Pinocchio”).

 

Rating: A-