Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938)
- The original script for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was written over a decade before production finally began in 1938.
- Before Adriana Caselotti was cast, several major A-list stars turned down the lead role because they felt the script was too risky.
- David Hand, Ben Sharpsteen originally wanted a completely different ending for the film, but test audiences preferred the one we see today.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1938 American animated musical fantasy produced by Walt Disney Productions, the first full-length cel-animated feature film in cinema history. Based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the film follows the beautiful Princess Snow White, who is forced to flee into the forest when her jealous stepmother, the Evil Queen, orders her huntsman to kill her. Snow White finds refuge with seven diminutive miners โ Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey โ and their woodland cottage, but the Queen discovers her survival and disguises herself as an old hag to poison Snow White with an enchanted apple.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was one of the greatest gambles in entertainment history โ the production cost $1.5 million (equivalent to approximately $30 million today), more than six times its original budget, and was widely derided in Hollywood as "Disney's Folly" on the assumption that no audience would sit through a feature-length cartoon. Walt Disney proved every skeptic wrong. The film earned $8 million in its initial release during the Great Depression, making it the most successful sound film produced to that date.
The animation represented the pinnacle of hand-drawn artistry, with the multiplane camera creating unprecedented depth and richness. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs established the Disney animated feature as a medium capable of genuine art and launched an industry that continues to evolve 85 years later.
