THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
When you say beauty is in all shape and forms, accept it or you’re gonna cause a swarm of unneeded drama.
PLOT
Based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs follows the titular princess be deemed of a threat to her stepmother Queen due to a magic mirror confirming her to be most beautiful and will outshine her. Not wanting that to happen, the Queen has her step daughter be a scullery maid, but that doesn’t work when her singing attracts a nearby prince. So, she compromises by having a huntsman (Stuart Buchanan) to kill her and bring back her heart as proof. He ends up hesitating and encourages the princess to run away. Alone in the woods, Snow White finds an abandoned cottage and makes shelter with the company of the woodland animals. Shortly after does she discover it to be the home of seven dwarfs: Doc (Roy Atwell), Dopey, Bashful (Scotty Mattraw), Happy (Otis Harlan), Sneezy (Billy Gilbert), Sleepy & Grumpy (both played by Pinto Colvig). She doesn’t meet them all until after they return from working in the mines, mining for jewels. When they first find the house tidied up, they suspect her to be an intruder until she reveals who she is and offers to cook and clean for them. Things would actually work out on both sides because every time the dwarves would work at day, they’d party at night with the princess. The queen would soon discover that her stepdaughter is still alive, which leads to her taking matters into her own hands. Her idea of a last resort would be disguising herself as an elderly woman and poisoning an apple that can only have its curse undone from true love’s first kiss. She perfectly times the encounter by waiting until the dwarves have left for work in order to give the princess the apple. She does succeed in feeding her the fruit, in which she falls to a death like slumber, but is quickly chased by the returning dwarves thanks to the woodland animals seeing through her disguise and warning them in time. The queen does get isolated to a cliff and tries to kill her enemies by rolling a boulder onto them, but lightning strikes the cliff before she can, causing her to fall and be crushed by said boulder. Luckily, Snow White’s curse is undone by the same Prince (Harry Stockwell) from before who wakes her up with true love’s first kiss and the film ends with all rejoicing & living happily ever after.
THOUGHTS
When people ask me what was the first movie I have ever seen in my lifetime, my answer happens to be the first theatric feature by producer Walt Disney and the directing team of: David Hand, Pierce Pearce, William Cottrell, Larry Morey, Wilfred Jackson & Ben Sharpensteen. After a fair share of Mickey Mouse shorts, the studio made the upgrade that truly made the animated genre its own. Every time I give this a rewatch, I’m stunned on how this was all pulled off back then because frame by frame, the details done to bring this fairy tale to life in spectacular fashion. The character designs are already impressive, but the other details such as the movement of water, the visuals of the wind or seeing a dove blush is a feat of its own and it feels impossible to not praise. Looking back, it holds up for not being the original standards of fairy tales itself, but for being fluent in saying vanity/jealousy will prevent you from being content in life itself, which is the dynamic between the damsel and antagonist. The queen remains the ideal example in how cruel a villain because it’s honestly absorb to kill your step daughter over being more beautiful. Lucille La Verne definitely set such range in voicing this character for being this vain individual that is so power hungry, she’ll disguise herself to intercept a threat that doesn’t need to be. Because of her, I don’t ever eat apples and don’t plan to in my lifetime. So when she is defeated so easily, it comes to show it could’ve been avoided had she lived with a different mindset. It’s easy for us to love Snow White instead because Adriana Caselotti easily pulls it off in portraying the princess so likable because she doesn’t have hatred in her bones despite not being loved back in return before meeting the prince or the dwarves. You just feel all her optimism when she sings “I’m Wishing” & “Someday My Prince Will Come” because that’s all that’s needed to be happy and that was enough to get along with the dwarves. All seven of them were a delight to see because they were simple minded guys who were grateful to get by and every time I hear ‘Heigh Ho’, I’m reminded of that. Doc was cool because despite being wordy, he’s still a good leader when it matters. Because of him, I still wash my hands so you can’t say movies don’t teach kids anything. Dopey may not talk but he was adorable for being full of life with each smile. The same can be said with Happy who lived up to the name and Bashful following that up with also sharing a kind heart. Sneezy & Sleepy aren’t exactly defined by their names per se because when they’re not feeling such, they still prefer being friendly over anything else. Grumpy is the most colorful though because he’s far too cautious of a guy for his own good, but meeting the princess helped him keep his guard down when necessary. He honestly had the right to be pessimistic about her until she proved his fears wrong, but he put his anger to use when leading the others against the Queen. You feel bad for them when they mourned for Snow White because she became a mother to them and weren’t sure how to remain just as happy, thus deciding to put her in a glass coffin. So, you can call it a miracle when the prince found his way back to her and in this case, the world felt just right after that. In conclusion, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will remain the crème of the crop for animated films due to being a fascinated story to follow and inspiring many films decades later. If you love fairy tales, this is where it all started.
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