Summary: The beautiful princess Snow White escapes her jealous stepmother, the queen, and befriends a lovable group of dwarfs. But when she falls under the queen’s wicked spell, only true love’s kiss can save her. - Amazon.com
Length: 83 minutes
Rating: G
Date of Original Release: 1937
Directors: William Cottrell, David Hand, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen
Writers: Wilhelm & Jacob Grimm; Ted Sears, Richard Creedon, Otto Englander, Dick Rickard, Earl Hurd, Merrill De Maris, Dorothy Ann Blank, Webb Smith
Music: Frank Churchill, Leigh Harline, Paul J. Smith
Cast
SNOW WHITE – Adriana Caselotti
QUEEN/WITCH – Lucille La Verne
DOC – Roy Atwell
HAPPY – Otis Harlan
SNEEZY – Billy Gilbert
BASHFUL – Scotty Mattraw
SLEEPY/GRUMPY – Pinto Colvig
DOPEY – Eddie Collins
PRINCE – Harry Stockwell
MAGIC MIRROR – Moroni Olsen
HUNTSMAN – Stuart Buchanan
FINALE CHORUS – Hall Johnson Choir
Plot & Commentary
We literally open our story. A white-and-gold book titled Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs mysteriously swings open without the aid of hands, and the illiterate among us are out of luck as we’re given backstory to read. Once upon a time, there was a lovely little Princess named Snow White. Her vain and wicked Stepmother the Queen feared that some day Snow White’s beauty would surpass her own. So she dressed the little Princess in rags and forced her to work as a Scullery Maid. Whenever I’m given things to read in movies, I speed through it as fast as I can, because I’m perpetually afraid that the words are going to vanish before I’m done. And I’m either proved right or I have to sit there for five minutes rereading the same thing three more times. Each day the vain Queen consulted her Magic Mirror. “Magic Mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest one of all?” … and as long as the Mirror answered, “You are the fairest one of all,” Snow White was safe from the Queen’s cruel jealousy.
Ohh, pretty castle. We zoom right in through a window into a dark room. The queen, dressed in black and purple with a gigantic gold crown on her head, and who is not that pretty, calls up her slave in the mirror. A drama mask, more tragedy from comedy, appears. He’s like, Oh, it’s you again. The queen delivers her classic line. He has some bad news: Snow White is now fairer than she is. I wish he had shouted BOOYAH! at the end of his recitation.
The guilty party is outside scrubbing some stone steps. She has hair black as ebony, lips red as roses, skin white as snow, and she’s wearing rags and an annoying bow on the top of her head. A flock of white doves is keeping her company. As the member of a very Dutch family, I always zeroed in on the wooden shoes Snow White is wearing. It probably was one of the factors in making me like this movie more than most children do.
Snow White hums to herself as she pulls up a bucket from what has to be the most beautiful well in existence. Look at that early Disney detail! You can see the water falling off the rope! She informs the doves that this is actually a wishing well. They’re like, REALLY?? Disney sets precedent early here, with animals interacting with humans on a higher level than they’re actually capable of. She sings into the well and it echoes back, which scares the birds, which makes me laugh.
Snow White sings a duet with the well. Her tinny little voice grates, but I dare you to get through this song without singing the ah-ha-ha-ha-has for the next three hours. “I’m wishing for the one I love to find me today. I’m hoping and I’m dreaming of the nice things he’ll say.” Great lyrics there, everybody. I could go into commentary about the skanky state of the world today, but instead I’ll draw attention to the pathetic fact that Snow White’s life sucks so much that all she wants is someone to say something nice to her. She sings and sings about how she wishes she could fall in love today, and—OH, HOW CONVENIENT: there happens to be a prince riding by the wall outside. He stops to check her out; she doesn’t notice.
When the prince’s reflection pops up in the well it scares the heck out of me. He’s like a jack-in-the-box. I wouldn’t have squealed, “Oooh!” – I would have screamed, loudly, and then I would have pushed him into the well. Even though he looks completely harmless, Snow White runs away, up to a balcony above the courtyard. He starts singing her a love song. “One song, I have but one song. One song, only for you. One heart, tenderly beating, ever entreating, constant and true.” She nearly melts into a puddle right there. Deciding her rags look as presentable as they’re gonna, she shows herself again. “One love that has possessed me, one love thrilling me through. One song my heart keeps singing, of one love only for you.” So was that improvised or was it a little something you had waiting up your sleeve, you know, for when you might cross paths with a musical scullery maid who would eat it up with a spoon?
They share a little moment, thanks to the birds. If doves were tame and liked me enough to perch on my hand and let me kiss their [hopefully hepatitis-free] beaks, and then were smart enough to flutter down to the prince serenading me, you can bet I would be flying kisses off the balcony! And so would anybody else! And then she closes the curtains. WHY? Why aren’t you going to even TALK to him? You can bet I would not have shut those curtains. Stay a scullery maid whose stepmother’s angry eyes read VENGEANCE or get out of dodge with the handsome man surrounded by pink dogwoods and blushing doves? Snow White, you’re an idiot. Megan, I hope you’re taking notes on how to act during your next princely interaction.
The queen orders her huntsman to take Snow White into the woods and kill her. Also, if he doesn’t mind, please carve her heart out of her dead body and put it in this fancy box. He is not cool with this plan but he’ll be executed if he doesn’t.
Snow White waltzes around the hills in a pretty dress, picking flowers and singing the prince’s love song. When she stops to rescue a lost baby bird (NO REALLY) the huntsman decides this is a good time to do what he came for. She sees him, screams, and covers her face with her arms. Not over the site of any vital organs. Her face. He raises the knife, then drops it. He can’t do it. He tells her the queen is mad with jealousy, which is news to her. Why did she think she was scrubbing steps and wearing rags? “Run away! Hide! Never come back!” orders the huntsman, and she plunges into the woods.
The woods are terrifying. This mostly due to Snow White’s misperception, but it’s still pretty freaky—I remember being more scared of this part when I was six years old than any other part of this movie. She finally collapses in tears, and the woods lighten up and the monster eyes reveal themselves to be nothing but rabbits and harmless forest animals.
She’s ashamed of herself for being so afraid. “What do you do when things go wrong?” she asks the bluebirds (NO REALLY) who give her a great idea: SINGING! She sings a happy little song about... smiling and singing. All forest animals who weren’t already here make their way over and gather around her like magnets to a fridge. She decides they probably know a good place for her to sleep. I can’t wait to test this theory the next time I’m lost in the woods. Megan! Let’s go camping! The birds grab her cape and the whole crowd marches to a clearing containing a little cottage with a bridge over a brook. Snow White skitters with delight up to it, with many dramatic pauses to fling out her arms or clasp her hands as she goes. Did women in the 1920s really act like this?
Instead of knocking at the door like a normal person, she goes straight to the window and helps herself to a look. She has to wipe grime off the glass to see in, and a small raccoon mimics her, which makes me laugh. “Oooh, it’s dark inside!” she exclaims, and THEN goes to knock at the door, which we already know isn’t going to be answered. So she lets herself in. “Hello? May I come in?” This is Walt Disney teaching us manners. Snow White finds a tiny chair—seven tiny chairs—and decides seven children must live here. Orphans, to be exact. We already know she’s wrong, so we sit back and wait patiently for her to figure it out.
Her scullery maid side comes surging to the surface. She decides to clean the filthy house and maybe the orphan children will let her stay. The bluebirds sing the opening bars to the cleaning song. “Just whistle while you work, and cheerfully together we can tidy up the place. So hum a merry tune, it won’t take long when there’s a song to help you set the pace. And as you sweep the room imagine that the broom is someone that you love and soon you’ll find you’re dancing to the tune. When hearts are high, the time moves by, so whistle while you work.” This song is a lot cuter than I realized.
I have always loved this sequence because it fulfills my love of seeing things clean and organized. There are a lot of little jokes in it too, like when she catches the animals washing the dishes by licking them, or when she shakes out a cloth out the window and a squirrel does the same with its tail, or when another squirrel uses its tail to clean off spiderwebs and a chipmunk tries to do the same, and a buck can hardly hold up his overloaded antlers with dirty laundry to be taken to the brook for washing.
A bunch of dwarfs—I’m guessing somewhere around seven of them, but who’s counting? (Megan, probably)—are digging in a sparkling diamond mine for gems the size of my fist. The clock strikes and it’s time to go home. They sing a repetitive song and march in a line through the woods.
Snow White and her fleet of animals go to investigate the room upstairs. Quick! Name all seven dwarfs! Doc, Happy, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, Bashful, and Sleepy. Snow White falls asleep across three of the beds and the animals settle in for a nap. They wake up fast, though, when they hear the dulcet strains of “Heigh Ho” coming through the woods, and everyone bolts out the door.
The dwarves arrive at the lit-up cottage and think someone’s lying in wait for them. They enter the room Snow White just invaded with her forces of cleanliness and are none too pleased with what they find.
SNEEZY: Sink’s empty. Hey! Someone stole our dishes!
HAPPY: They ain’t stole. They’re hid in the cupboard.
“My cup’s been washed. Sugar’s gone.” I always felt sorry for Bashful’s misfortune here—Snow White, why did you have to mess with things that did not concern you?!—never considering until now that he could just get more sugar the next time he made tea. I guess I always thought that was the end of the sugar supply for Bashful. The dwarfs battle the nature that is Sneezy’s namesake. “You’re going to get us all killed,” rages Grumpy, and the bluebird family plays a prank at the expense of the frightened dwarfs. Dopey is nominated to go upstairs and see what he can find. He sees Snow White yawn and stretch beneath the blankets, and shoots down the stairs like the devil is after him. Since Dopey can’t, you know, talk, all the dwarfs accidentally attack him. Then together they brave the monster in the bedroom.
Finding a mighty purty girl asleep in their beds is a pleasant surprise to everyone but Grumpy. “Women are pi’son! They’re full of wicked wiles!” Snow White wakes up and charms the socks off them.
SNOW WHITE: How do you do? [silence] I said, how do you do?
GRUMPY: How do you do WHAT?
That makes me laugh every time. She guesses their names correctly. She tells them who she is and that the queen is out to get her. Grumpy is against Snow White staying, foreseeing a visit from the vengeful witch-queen, but they’re happy to keep her when she offers to cook for them.
Dinnertime, and everyone is told to wash their hands. Grumpy: “Knew there was a catch to it.” They’re confused. Wash? Why? “Ain’t going nowhere.” “T’ain’t the new year.” Heh. She provides a loophole—maybe they’ve already washed. OH, yes! When? “Uhhh… Recently.” She wants to see their hands. This same scene plays out frequently in my interactions with four-year-olds. Their hands are filthy and she orders them outside. Grumpy has no intention of going anywhere but she talks him out of the room. He sits on a barrel and ridicules the others.
Six dwarfs approach the water trough with trepidation. They haven’t done this is in a long time. Doc sings an instructional song. All manage to clean themselves up. A water-blinded Sneezy uses Bashful’s shirttail and Sleepy uses Bashful's beard to dry off their faces. Haha. “A fine bunch of waterlillies you’ve turned out to be,” Grumpy mocks them. Doc frowns and consults the others. Grumpy watches suspiciously as the whistling group strolls past him then LAUNCHES THEIR ATTACK and carts him over to the tub. “Let me loose, ya fools!” Dopey manages to swallow the soap.
At the castle, the Queen figures out she’s been tricked. The mirror gives her detailed directions to Snow White’s location (seriously, it’s like Google Maps in here) and informs her that she’s holding the heart of a pig. She thunders down to the basement, screaming things like “If you want something done right you have to do it yourself” and makes a potion to disguise herself into an old, ugly hag. A thunderbolt mixes the potion, which I do NOT get, since we’re in the sub-basement here and a moment ago there were no windows in this room but I understand that’s getting nitpicky on my part and sometimes we just need a magic window, so full speed ahead, Disney architects. She drinks it and her body transforms. Then she finds a recipe for a poison apple. Muahaha.
The dwarfs and Snow White are having a little party while the animals watch happily from the windows. Everyone’s dancing and playing instruments and yodeling. Grumpy’s a magician on the organ. A few of the dwarfs sing awesome solos. Snow White and I are both laughing our heads off at this entire scene. She jumps up to dance. Dopey stands on Sneezy’s shoulders and wraps a long coat around them, and they dance with Snow White. This ends abruptly when Sneezy erupts and shoots Dopey out of the jacket.
They want her to tell them a story. She tells them a love story about herself. It turns into a song—“Someday my prince will come, someday we’ll meet again, and away to his castle we’ll go, to happy forever I know. Some day when spring is here, we’ll find our love anew, and the birds will sing, and wedding bells will ring, someday when my dreams come true.” They listen, dewy-eyed.
They insist that she sleep up in their beds, assuring her that they’ll be comfortable downstairs. As soon as the door shut behind her, battle ensues for the one pillow in the room, which they promptly rip to shreds. Snow White says prayers for the seven little men, for her dreams to come true, and for Grumpy to like her. He’s downstairs trying to sleep in the kettle. The rest of the dwarves are curled up in various cabinets and sinks, sleeping like babies. Oh, all of this looks so incredibly uncomfortable. The clearing outside is dark and full of the croaking of frogs. How quaint.
The Queen has been busy—the poison brew is ready. She dips the apple into the concoction, which leaves a skeleton face on the surface before turning bright red. She checks that there will be no way for the curse to be reversed. The handbook of evil sayeth that The victim of the sleeping death can be revived only by love’s first kiss. LOVE’S FIRST KISS. REPULSIVE. “No fear of that,” she cackles. “The dwarfs will think she’s dead. She’ll be buried alive! Hahahahaha! BURIED ALIVE!” She takes her basket of apple and gets into a little boat. Off she rows, making her way through the mist toward the cottage.
Morning, and the dwarfs are off to work. Snow White stands at the front door while they leave.
DOC: Now remember, the old queen’s a sly one. Full of witchcraft. So beware of strangers.
SNOW WHITE: Don’t worry! I’ll be alright!
The epitome of famous last words. All of them tell her to be careful and she kisses each of them on the head. If they’re so nervous, why doesn’t one of them stay there with her? Or take her to the mine with them? Dopey gets his kiss, then gets back in line twice. We catch Grumpy looking at his forehead in the mirror. She waves to others while he harrumphs in the doorway for a while. He gives her a warning and she gives him his kiss, which makes him turn pink and bashful. She waves goodbye and he walks into a tree, then falls into the brook. That was some kiss on the forehead, Grumpy.
The witch is on the trail, strategizing out loud. She passes a tree containing a pair of vultures. They smirk and follow her. Dun dun dunnnn…
Snow White is making a pie for Grumpy with the help of about fifty animals. She’s singing her love song as she admires her handiwork. WOAH—there’s the peddler woman in the window. She’s cackling creepily. “All alone, my pet?” Snow White is a little disconcerted. “Why, yes, I am, but…” The witch warms her up with cooking talk. Making pies? And there goes Snow White’s sense of caution. “Yes, gooseberry pies!” Oh, BAD choice, sweetheart, you want APPLE pies! I hate it when I’m forced to agree with the villain on some trivial point. If Snow White is going to have an apple pie baking party, she had better invite you and me, Megan, seeing as we’re apple pie pros. This ties in nicely to the theme of things you never experienced as a child, doesn’t it? Where were we? The witch pulls out the poisoned apple: free sample!
The birds, sensing something wrong, wisely attack the woman. Snow White runs out to chase them away. The queen pretends her heart is weak, and manages to get herself invited into the house. Ohh, such an idiot. The animals race off to the mine, where the dwarfs have just arrived.
The dwarfs try to beat off the horde of distressed animals that comes charging at them without stopping to consider possible reasons for this phenomenon.
DOC: What ails these crazy birds?!
BASHFUL: They’ve gone plum mad!
Sneezy blasts a few animals away with a sneeze. Haha.
The witch is still working up Snow White. The girl is so kind, she deserves to know a secret. “It’s a magic wishing apple. One bite and all your dreams come true.” Snow White is so ready to believe this. It sure sounds legit to me. “Now, make a wish, and take a bite.”
“Maybe the old queen’s got Snow White,” conjectures Sleepy, stretching. THE QUEEN! Oh, these characters, all these characters. Their short term memory is the worst ever. Grumpy jumps on the back of a deer and leads the charge back to the cottage.
“Now take the apple, dearie, and make a wish.” Snow White has bought it hook, line, and sinker. She grabs the apple. “I wish—I wish—”
The dwarfs race along...
“…where we will live happily ever after.” Snow White can’t finish this wish fast enough. The queen: “FINE, FINE! Now take a bite.” This doesn’t sound ODD to you? To some degree I feel that Snow White would be a great nominee for the Darwin Awards.
The dwarfs race along...
Snow White bites the apple. The witch watches in breathless delight. “Her breath will still. Her blood congeal…” The apple rolls across the floor and we see Snow White’s lifeless arm hit the ground. “NOW I’LL BE FAIREST IN THE LAND!” shrieks the hag triumphantly. Motives are a funny thing.
It starts to rain, as it always does in movies when something particularly horrible or sad has just happened. The dwarfs arrive ten seconds too late and see the queen leaving the house. They continue the charge. With them hot on her tail, she climbs to the edge of a cliff and finds herself trapped. She tries to propel a boulder at them to crush them where they climb. She bursts into laughter at the pure genius of this idea. Then—lightning hits the spot where she stands. The ground crumbles and she falls to her death. The boulder falls after her. The vultures look pleased and circle down.
The dwarfs are in tears, sitting around Snow White’s body. Candles are lit and someone invisible plays funereal organ music. Grumpy can hardly contain himself. The animals stand outside in the rain, heads down.
Hope you can read!
[autumn] …so beautiful, even in death, that the dwarfs could not find it in their hearts to bury her…
[winter] …they fashioned a coffin of glass and gold, and kept eternal vigil at her side…
[spring] …the Prince, who had searched far and wide, heard of the maiden who slept in the glass coffin.
The dwarfs have put Snow White’s coffin in a pretty clearing in the woods. The trees are tall and the sun is bright. The coffin, which is more like a bed, is surrounded by bouquets of flowers. Nine months later and the dwarfs and the animals are still mourning.
The Prince arrives at the top of the path, looking down on this scene and singing his love song. The crowd parts for him. He pauses to melodramatically stretch out his arms (made for each other, these two) and approaches the coffin. He kisses her, then bows his head in grief. The dwarfs and animals can’t even handle the sight of their dear girl and the love of her heart separated by death.
She blinks a few times. She stretches and yawns. The dwarfs look up and witness this. They’re astonished, then overjoyed. Then the animals notice. She sits up; the prince looks up; they see each other at the same time. She stretches out her arms to him and he picks her up and they smile at each other delightedly. Aww. A really happy-sounding choir sends us out with “Someday My Prince Will Come.” Everyone dances around in ecstasy. Snow White waves and blows kisses as the Prince carries her to his horse. He sets her in the saddle and lifts all the dwarfs up to her so she can kiss their foreheads goodbye. Thanks, guys, for watching over me for nine months straight—let me give you a quick goodbye and I’ll be out of your hair. Sorry, all of you are bald. I’ll be out of your beards, then. The prince takes the horse’s reins and the couple walks away. They reach the top of a hill and look out at the horizon, where a castle literally in the clouds becomes visible. The castle shines with all the light of the sun.
…and they lived happily ever after.
It’s over!
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