Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is Walt Disney’s 1937 animated feature, adapted from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “Snow White.” Produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures, it premiered at Los Angeles’s Carthay Circle Theatre on December 21, 1937. The picture is described as the first full-length cel-animated feature and the first animated feature made in the United States. Its reception and box-office performance gave Disney the financial basis for further features. The production, called “Disney’s Folly” because of its cost and ambition, demonstrated that audiences would pay to see an story at feature length.

The plot begins when the Magic Mirror tells the vain Queen that Snow White, her young stepdaughter, is “the fairest one of all.” The Queen orders a huntsman to kill the girl and bring back her heart. He cannot do it, and Snow White runs into the forest. She discovers a cottage belonging to seven dwarfs: Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey. After they return from their diamond mine, the dwarfs let her stay, provided she keeps house. The Queen learns from the mirror that Snow White lives and prepares a poisoned apple disguised as a peddler woman.

Snow White accepts the apple, falls into a deathlike sleep, and the dwarfs pursue the Queen. During her escape, she falls from a cliff after lightning destroys the rock beneath her. Unable to bury Snow White, the dwarfs place her in a glass coffin. A Prince, who had met her at the Queen’s castle, finds her and kisses her. The kiss breaks the spell; Snow White awakens, says goodbye to the dwarfs, and rides away with the Prince. The film’s songs include “Heigh-Ho,” sung as the dwarfs march to work, “Whistle While You Work,” and “Someday My Prince Will Come.”

Adriana Caselotti provided Snow White’s voice, while Lucille La Verne voiced both the Queen and the disguised Witch. Harry Stockwell voiced the Prince. The dwarfs were designed with personalities rather than being interchangeable figures, a choice central to the film’s comedy and emotion. At the 1938 Academy Awards, Walt Disney received an honorary Oscar for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: a full-size statuette accompanied by seven miniature ones, presented by Shirley Temple. In 1989, the film was among the first 25 selections added to the United States National Film Registry, which preserves films judged “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”