#36: SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS

 

Directed by David Hand, Perce Pearce, William Cottrell, Larry Morey, Wilfred Jackson and Ben Sharpsteen. Story by Ted Sears, Richard Creedon, Otto Englander, Dick Rickard, Earl Hurd, Merrill De Maris, Dorothy Ann Blank and Webb Smith. Voices by Adriana Caselotti, Roy Atwell, Pinto Colvig, Otis Harlan, Scotty Mattraw, Billy Gilbert. Running time 83 minutes.

With a story as old as time, well 1812, this 1937 musical fantasy adaptation is the film that started it all, the first-ever full-length animated movie spearheaded by visionary Walt Disney. A film that very nearly bankrupted both Disney the man and the company, a film described in its day as Disney's folly. However its legacy is truly extraordinary, one of the first 25 films to be preserved in the Library of Congress, one of the top ten highest grossing films of all times earning over $8 million dollars off of a budget of $1.5 million. 

The story based on the Brother's Grimm original sees the innocent, beautiful and delightful Snow White forced to live in the forest to escape the murderous intent of her wicked step-mother. Lead by the forest creatures, Snow White finds the house of the Seven Dwarfs and becomes their surrogate mother, and starts to live happily ever after, that is until her step-mother discovering her step-daughter is still alive poisons her with a cursed apple. 

I've not seen this film at the cinema since I was a child and I've not watched it for well over 20 years, indeed i don't think I ever showed it to my children. so that said it was amazing how ingrained this is in my psyche and likewise how much seemed strangely new, I'd forgotten it was for all intensive purposes a musical and I'd forgotten just how delightful it was. A film so charming, gentle and sweet-natured that you fall hook, line and sinker for its beguiling charm so much so that when the wicked queen turns into the terrifying old lady and gives the apple to Snow White, you're genuinely mortified.

I marvelled at the sheer artistry on show here, the staggering animation, the beauty of it all, all hand-drawn and painted, no cgi trickery, and only the minimal use of optical tricks. The opening tracking shot into the castle is a marvel and the character animation is perfection. And the clever use of rotoscoped human motion capture animation is peerless.

It's a film that doesn't outstay its welcome, running at a brisk 83 minutes, and put to shame the truly horrendous animated trailers for new films that ran before it. 

There's no cringey life-lessons to be learned here, no twee little tale about cute animals going on a quest, or some crass no-stakes adventure. It's a shame the modern day animated movies have moved so far from their source and become so generic, similarly it's a shame that Disney itself has become so safe and risk adverse, you could never imagine them making something like this, or Pinocchio ever again. Modern day films need messages and lessons to be learned, they need strong sassy wise-cracking teenagers and those dwarfs, awkward. 

Go and see this on the big screen and be delighted as you were when you first saw it, the kids who were in the cinema this morning were engrossed, and enthralled in a way you just don't normally see in modern day cinemas.

An utter cinematic delight. 10/10