Snow White (1937)

"Snow White" is a nineteenth-century German fairy tale which is still widely recognised today. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection Grimms' Fairy Tales. Walt Disney later used the fairy-tale in his first feature length film.

The story begins by introducing Snow White, a lonely princess with"…skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony" living with her stepmother, a vain and wicked Queen. The Queen fears that Snow White's beauty surpasses her own, so she forces Snow White to work as a scullery maid and asks her Magic Mirror daily "who is the fairest one of all". For several years the mirror always answered that the Queen was, pleasing her.

One day, the mirror has a different answer, that Snow White has become more beautiful than queen. "My queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White is a thousand times more beautiful than you."

The Queen becomes jealous and she orders a huntsman to take Snow White to the forest and kill her. As proof, she asked him to bring her back her heart in a box (lungs and liver in the original version). But huntsman is a good man so he saves a Snow White, telling her to get far, far away from the kingdom, and returns to the castle with the heart of a wild animal.

After a horrifying night in the woods, Snow White discovers a tiny cottage in the forest and, finding no one at home, cleans up the house and cooks a mean for when the occupants return, hoping that they will let her stay. Tired out from her escape, she falls asleep in the upstairs bedroom. It turns out that the tiny cottage belongs to seven dwarfs. When they come home from working in the mines, Snow White explain to them what happened and dwarfs let her stay, warning her to be careful when alone at home and to let no one in when they are away.

Meanwhile, the queen asks her mirror a question once again: "Magic mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?" And because mirror always says the truth the mirror replies: "My queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White beyond the mountains at the Seven Dwarfs’ house is a thousand times more beautiful than you".

The queen is horrified to learn that the huntsman has betrayed her and that Snow White is still alive.  Using her magic, the Queen turns herself into an old crone and creates a poison apple to gift to Snow White. Worried that there might be an antidote, she checks her book to find that the spell can be reversed by true love’s first kiss. The Queen, with her black heart, dismisses this as a needless concern. She travels to the cottage and offers Snow White the apple, claiming it can make wishes come true. The girl eagerly takes a bite and falls into a deathly sleep. The dwarfs return as the Queen leaves the cottage and give chase, trapping her on a cliff. She tries to roll a boulder over them, but before she can do so, lightning strikes the cliff, causing her to fall to her death.

The dwarfs return to the cottage to find Snow White on the floor of the cottage and are heartbroken. Unable to bury her beauty, they place her in a glass coffin and stand vigil over it. One day, a prince arrives at the cottage, having heard of the girl in the glass coffin. This prince has seen Snow White before when she lived at the castle and had fallen in love. Upon seeing her, apparently dead, he kneels to grieve and gives Snow White, what he believes is, one last kiss. Suddenly, Snow White awakes from her sleep, causing the dwarfs to celebrate. The Prince immediately takes Snow White away on his horse to get married at his castle. 

Did You Know…?

It took almost two years to come up with the final renderings of the Seven Dwarfs.

Six of the dwarfs have eyebrows modeled after Walt Disney’s. Happy was the exception, his eyebrows were white and bushy.

The movie was one of Hitler’s personal favorites(WOW!); he owned a copy and screened it in his home movie theater