Review of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938) by Marcus G — 31 Jan 2011

The first of Walt Disneyâ(TM)s historic features was a pleasure to watch. Beautifully animated with deceptively gentle strokes, we are delicately guided through the Brothers Grimmâ(TM)s fairy tale. But this is still a fairy tale and a 1930â²s film, made at a time where stories were not so toned down for our children, and a healthy dose of fear and horror was not shied away from.

Snow White is definitely a ditsy princess, so innocent that her counter has to be the personification of pure evil and she certainly is. The Queen, represents some of our darkest emotions, and there is little effort to tone this down, which I liked, a lot. She is evil, driven by her vain jealously to firstly attempt to have Snow White murdered, and then failing that, to poison her into a narcoleptic state and have her buried alive!

Is this what you now think of a s Disney film, with a U rating? No, but thanks to this and the following films successes, this is a prized classic and untouchable. I think that this is a true family movie, with as much darkness as there is light, with some great musical numbers, indelible characters and an animation style which is truly timeless.

I mean this is a musical which was made in Technicolor less than ten years after the innovation of sound was introduced to black and white films. This is a film which children feel a part of and donâ(TM)t even compare to black and whiteâ(TM)s of the same era, which of course, they hate and donâ(TM)t feel are real.

Hats off to Walt, who I must admit, Iâ(TM)ve never really been a fan of, but Iâ(TM)m working my way through his classics and am liking what I am seeing so farâ¦.