SNOW WHITE (1937)

With Disney about to release the latest of their audience-pleasing, taxidermical Live-Action adaptations of beloved animated classics (the one that started it all), a post on the original 1937 beauty.  (Along with Warners’ first properly distributed Talkie, THE SINGING FOOL/’28, SNOW WHITE probably the film seen by more people than any to come out between BIRTH OF A NATION/’15 and GONE WITH THE WIND/’39.)  It recently was trending on social media after the new SNOW WHITE opined on not much caring for it; even finding Prince Charming something of a stalker.  Immediately retracted, and walked back by mortified Disney publicists, the idea that a 13th century fable, as compiled by the Grimm brothers in the early 19th century, wouldn’t line up with 21st century mores & manners apparently too much to take in.  Anyway, stalking?  He’s searching.  And the film’s big hit tune is all about how the princess, having already met and fallen in love, dreams that ‘One Day My Prince Will Come.’  As she tells the Seven Little Men.  A surprisingly up-to-date term for 1937.  (Apparently, the dwarfs 100% CGI in the new version which makes them . . . animation?  Or is it more a photorealistic CGI kind of thing?*)  Enough preamble.  How’s the old film holding up?  Wonderfully, especially when seen in its latest restoration; more dazzling and much sharper than recently.  In addition to the miraculous set pieces (the housecleaning, the marching to & from work, dancing (those organ pipes!), with details you might not have noticed before.  Like the way the air briefly fills with dust when rags are shaken out the window.  Such care!  Not only showing off, but showing a level of pride in the product that’s also a lost art.  (Speaking of lost techniques, note the unique water effects, changed in the next Disney features.)  The film exceptional at displaying what was probably Walt Disney’s best gifts as moviemaker: famously not much of an animator, it was his superb sense of character development and his often ruthless way with story editing.  (Compare the lack of focus & drive to similar story beats in his SLEEPING BEAUTY/’59 when Walt had grown far less involved.)  To nitpick, one song isn’t up to the rest (‘With a Smile and a Song’), but even Adriana Caselotti’s childish coloratura now seems more appropriate.  (Brief personal note: when those rocks fall on the Wicked Queen, this toddler was being quickly hauled out of the theater in sheer terror, but watching the screen over his mother’s shoulder for the next horror.  It’s still a scary pic.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID I:  When the Disney brand was at a low point culturally & commercially in the ‘70s, lots of backlash in how Dopey was treated.  True, the guy’s a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic, but look again to see just how much he’s mainstreamed into the group, part of the team and used to the best of his abilities.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID II:  Six years later, in 1943, Rodgers & Hammerstein would get credit for inventing the fully integrated musical in B’way’s OKLAHOMA!, with all songs advancing action or character.  Yet isn’t that what happens in SNOW WHITE?

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Before Live-Action remakes and photorealistic CGI animation, those clever Disney monetizers would turn everything into a skating show.  SNOW WHITE ON ICE!!