Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs

So much has been said of Snow White over the past 64 years that any new insight is unlikely. Criticism of the plot would be foolish as this is a fairytale and we all know what happens and what elements there are (handsome prince, magic, castle etc) so I'll avoid mentioning those and try to take a new approach to the movie even though it is not the type I would usually go for.

Recent Disney features are all about celebrity voices (Adriana Caselotti was paid $20 a day for her work as Miss White) and noise and stupid sound effects and talking candles/gargoyles/colostomy bags and badly timed, pointless songs. I have precious little time for such movies, but Snow White, the first full-length animated feature, shows a class that Disney has since run out of.

Although not set in a particular country, the film is quite European in style and imagery, which is odd when the Dwarfs sound like they come from backwoods Kentucky.

How on earth the magic mirror reckons that the evil queen is the fairest of them all is beyond me. She looks and dresses like a horrible headmistress and has all the humour and appeal of testicular cancer. Her character and wicked intentions were obviously scary to children back in those days, but her ugliness is contrasted to Snow White, her vertically challenged rescuers and an abundance of cute forest animals that are impossible not to love.

Although the film looks rather tame and safe by today's standards, back in 1937 the only other kind of movies were black-and-white Sunday afternoon weepies. Thank God that Disney changed all that by introducing a whole new world of animation.