Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

“Snow White”’s historical credentials are well known: as the Disney studio’s first feature-length film, it marked a significant turning point for Walt Disney himself, for the Disney studio, for the art of animation, and to some extent for American films in general. Like most celebrated “firsts,” it wasn’t really the first animated feature. But it’s fair to say that no earlier feature had showcased the full range of animation technique in the way that “Snow White” did, nor so combined it with rich color, an infectious musical score, and an absorbing, carefully developed story. Instead of creating an art-house curio, bidding for attention on its novelty value alone, Walt boldly jumped into the center of the arena, crafting an animated feature that could compete with the major studios’ live-action features on their own terms. The sheer audacity of this concept in 1937 is impressive enough, but Walt didn’t stop with the concept. So fully did “Snow White” realize its goals that it scored a spectacular worldwide success at the box office, forcing the rest of the film industry to pay attention, and forever changing the course of the Disney studio.