Where It All Began

And here is where the Disney legacy really begins. Released all the way back in 1937 we have the very first U.S. animated feature film, as well as the very first cell animated one. And yes, that meant that every single cell of the film was individually painted. It was a painstaking process, even for a company versed in animating for film, like Disney. Walt’s company had been making “Silly Symphony” animated shorts for theaters, and those proved successful enough that Disney wanted to move into full length features… but the process was time consuming and difficult (even though the animators threw themselves willingly into the process).

The resulting film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, was made on a $1.5 Mil production budget and went on, in its initial release, to make $8 Mil in theaters. Subsequent releases (as films were frequently re-released in theaters, over and over, due to the lack of a home video market) helped to push that number up over $418 Mil, resulting in one of the most successful animated films of all time. Surely that’s because, in no small part, it was also the first one ever made (at least in the United States).

With all that being said, I’m not going to make a statement that will probably ruffle the feathers of the Disney Princess faithful: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves isn’t all that great. Don’t get me wrong, as an achievement in animation the film is amazing. This had never been done before, and suddenly Walt and his team put out a feature length animated film that does look gorgeous (even now, close to ninety years later). But as a film, with a story, and characters, and anything that you can latch onto and care about, this film is a real dud at this point, and I hate saying that because it is such a successful film, and one that so many people love. Still, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves kind of sucks.

The film opens with a storybook text “crawl”, giving us the lowdown that the Evil Queen (Lucille La Verne) has demoted her step-daughter, Snow White (Adriana Caselotti), down to the level of a scullery maid, giving her nothing but rags to wear while she cleans the castle. Despite this, we see that Snow is a kind, sweet girl who spends her days singing to herself and talking to her animal friends. This catches the attention of Prince Charming (Harry Stockwell), who is roaming around the land when he hears the girl singing. The two fall instantly in love.

Things won’t be easy for the two, though. When the Queen consults her Magic Mirror (Moroni Olsen), she learns that it is Snow, and not the Queen, who is the fairest (read: most beautiful) lady in all the land. Wanting none to be more beautiful than her, the Queen sends Snow out to gather flowers, with a Huntsman (Stuart Buchanan) there ostensibly to watch over her. In reality, though, his orders are to kill the girl. He’s unable to, though, and sends her packing off into the woods to hide. Snow then finds (with the help of her animal friends) the cottage of seven dwarves – Roy Atwell as Doc, Pinto Colvig as Grumpy and Sleepy, Otis Harlan as Happy, Scotty Mattraw as Bashful, Billy Gilbert as Sneezy, and Eddie Collins as Dopey – whom she befriends. But with Snow still alive a target remains on her back and the Evil Queen will stop at nothing to become the fairest in all the land…

The issue with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is that there simply isn’t much story to this story. The opening storybook conveys much of what we need to know about the relationship between Snow and the Queen, but it’s told to us, not shown. The movie would have been better off spending fifteen to twenty minutes giving us the history of the two women, developing their relationship, all so we could understand each character. Without that, the Queen is a generically bad woman while Snow is a passive, simple girl that seems to barely understand her lot in life. Speeding through the intro short changes our main characters.

The film, from there, moves in fits and starts. Snow’s dash through the woods goes quickly, and she almost instantly stumbles on the cottage of the dwarves. A bulk of the middle of the film, then, ignores the impending danger of the Queen so that it can let the characters sing and dance, clean and eat and make merry. There’s no momentum here, no sense that the film is going anywhere. It’s a collection of musical moments without any need for existing… which does sort of make sense when you remember that before this Disney was mostly known for making “Silly Symphony” shorts. This film feels like a collection of those shorts.

It’s also pretty clear that there wasn’t really enough story to fill a full film. Disney originally planned to adapt Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as a “Silly Symphony” but then reconsidered (after trying to get other adaptations, like Babes in Toyland and Bambi, off the ground first). I think with as much actual story as this film has, it would have made a fantastic “Snow White” short, but it’s stretched out to overly long length in this theatrical version. By the fourth time all the characters break into song, doing nothing to move the story forward, I was bored.

The meat of the film happens at the start and at the end. The Queen tries to have Snow killed, it fails, she then discovers this and sets about to finish the job (with the help of a poisoned apple). There’s action, a big climax, and then Snow is saved by Prince Charming (spoilers for a 90 year old movie) who, it should be noted, hadn’t been seen in the film since the opening act. Much of the hour-fifteen runtime is just padding between these few story beats, and it drags the film on and on. It’s unnecessary padding just so a bunch of songs can get crammed into the movie.

Of course, it is worth noting that many of those songs are considered Disney classics now. Everyone knows “Heigh Ho,” and even if you haven’t seen the movie you could probably sing the few lyrics of the song just from memory. It’s an ear worm that never lets go. “Whistle While You Work” is another of those types of songs, and you could hear it along with “Some Day My Prince Will Come” and “I’m Wishing” any time you wander to a Disney theme park. These songs will live on forever, keeping Snow White and the Seven Dwarves alive as well.

But going back to the original film, it’s really no surprise to me that the later, 2025 remake bombed so hard. The producers had to strain to get enough story to justify a full remake, and that meant fleshing out many of the scenes the original animated film breezed past, while also adding in characters we could actually care about as well. The when you factor in that this film is old, and plenty of kids probably don’t like it as much (not just for all the reasons I listed above) as the likes of Frozen and Tangled, getting a successful adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves off the ground was a herculean task the studio (and all involved) simply couldn’t solve.

I didn’t go into Snow White and the Seven Dwarves intending to hate it, but there’s no denying that this is a 1937 film that not only feels old, it feels like it really didn’t know what it was doing. Sometimes being the first to something is a boon, and for Disney’s bottom line it certainly did pay off in this case. But in the long run Snow White and the Seven Dwarves feels like a product of its time, one that hasn’t aged nearly as well as it should. It’s a very early entry in the animated genre, and while it was successful at proving long-form animation could work, as a film on its own it’s pretty dull. Pretty, but empty… kind of like its titular main character.