Disney Classics In Order - No. 1 Snow White And The Seven Dwarves

Everyone likes a themed set of blog posts…. alright, alright, I like a themed set of blog posts as it gives me something to keep coming back to (until I get bored of it and decide to do something else, as is my wont). I love animation and, love them or loathe them, Disney have kept the animated feature film in the mainstream for over 80 years. They’ve had their highs and their lows but there is a certain level of quality associated with Disney animation. But is that badge of quality justified or is it simply the rose-tinted goggles of childhood nostalgia that bestows it upon them? It occurred that the vast majority of Disney films were watched by me as a child so let’s take a look at them through the lenses of a (supposedly) fully grown adult (so grown, in fact, that he has burst through his hair).

There’s a format to these (as always) but you’ll get the hang as we go along. Let’s begin at the beginning.

One Note Before Beginning:- It should go without saying that, as I’m going to discuss these in depth, there may well be spoilers. It also says something about the current state of social media that I feel I have to add this as a preface when talking about an 82 year old film.

Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Dir. David Hand (Supervising Director), Perce Pearce, William Cottrell, Larry Morey, Wilfred Jackson and Ben Sharpsteen
Based Upon:- “Snow White” by the Brothers Grimm

The One Where
A young homeless girls claims squatters rights in the home of seven diminutive gentlemen.

General Viewing Notes
The animation is still impressive over 80 years down the line but it does it show its age. There’s a softness and lack of definition to the human characters that isn’t there in later films and a noticeable difference between the way in which they’re animated (clearly based off a model’s movements) than the rest of the characters.
There are some surprisingly strong and creepy moments in there - the flight through the woods; the phrasing “her blood congeals”; the vultures circling the unseen corpse of the queen.

Disney Tropes
Quite a few kicked off here as you’d expect:- the character design for the animals and comedy characters is more appealing than that of the “regular” people; scene of absolute terror followed by animals emerging into the sunlight; a cleaning montage to music; a villain plunging to their death from a great height; fake-out death for the main character

Things You Notice As An Adult
- What do the dwarves do with their fortune? They spend all day every day mining precious gems and then just chuck them in a vault. They clearly don’t spend it on their house which is run down and dirty.
- Snow White offers to stay with them in exchange for doing the cooking and cleaning (very 1930s). What princess a) knows how to cook and clean and b) would ever dream of offering to do it?
- Snow White spends a whole song cleaning the downstairs of the house and yet hasn’t even thought to look upstairs yet. Who would do that?
- The Prince - Who on Earth looks at a corpse in a glass coffin and thinks, “Yeah, I’ll have a quick go on that”?

Classic Songs - Are They?
"Heigh-Ho"* and "Whistle While You Work" are definitely deserving of classic status. "I’m Wishing" and "Someday My Prince Will Come" are a bit drippy and unfortunately set the template for Disney ballads to come (as you may have noticed there, I’m not a huge fan of the Disney ballad).

Any Good Then?
It does still hold up although it never was one of my favourites and that view hasn’t been changed by a rewatch. It’s a little too much like a bog-standard 1930s studio musical (which, naturally, would have been the only template at the time that they could follow) to reach the heights of some of their later films but it is important for being the first and interesting to see how it all began.

Next One Of These
A wooden boy and his cricket pal

* Yep, that's how it's spelt, even though they pronounce it "Hi-Ho"