Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)

• 1. The gamble of a feature film

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  Walt Disney stood before his staff on the evening of the 30th of October 1934, and acted out an entire story for three hours. He announced that his studio would produce its first full-length animated movie based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Snow White. The project cost $1,488,422.74 to complete, which was ten times the budget of any previous Silly Symphony short. Industry insiders called it Disney's Folly because they believed audiences would not sit through an hour-and-a-half cartoon. Disney mortgaged his own house to secure funding when the production ran out of money midway through filming. Joseph Rosenberg of Bank of America approved a $250,000 loan after watching a rough cut of the film. Rosenberg told the worried producer that the picture would make a hatful of money.

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• 2. Voices behind the glass coffin

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  Adriana Caselotti auditioned for the role of Snow White in September 1934 and recorded her final tracks over forty-four days within two years. She received only $970 total for the work despite being paid $20 per day. Lucille La Verne voiced both the Queen and the Witch disguise by removing her false teeth to achieve the right vocal texture. La Verne had previously played similar roles in Orphans of Storm and A Tale of Two Cities before this performance became her final film role. Billy Gilbert won the part of Sneezy on the spot after demonstrating his signature sneezing routine during an audition. Eddie Holden and Billy Bletcher were initially considered for Doc but Walt Disney cast Roy Atwell instead. Harry Stockwell was chosen as the Prince after Kenny Baker and others failed to meet expectations.

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• 3. European art meets American animation

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  Albert Hurter supervised the art direction and designed all costumes and backgrounds with a distinct Germanic look. Ferdinand Horvath provided dark concepts for the film while Gustaf Tenggren determined the staging and atmosphere using European illustration styles. Arthur Rackham and John Bauer influenced Tenggren's approach to color and mood throughout production. The Queen's transformation into the Witch drew inspiration from Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde and German expressionist films like Nosferatu. Romeo and Juliet inspired the balcony scene between Snow White and the Prince. Animators used live-action footage as reference for human movement even though they generally disapproved of rotoscoping techniques. Helen Ogger developed a method to add red dye to faces using cotton wrapped around a pencil tip on each individual cel.

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• 4. Box office records and inflation adjusted earnings

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  The film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles on the 21st of December 1937 before going into general release on the 4th of February 1938. It earned $7,846,000 in international box office receipts during its original theatrical run against a production cost of $1.5 million. RKO Radio Pictures made a profit of $380,000 from these initial sales alone. The movie became the highest-grossing sound film of all time until displaced by Gone with the Wind in 1939. It held the record for highest-grossing animated film for fifty-five years. Adjusted for inflation, the lifetime gross reaches $418 million across all releases including reissues. The film remains one of the top-ten American moneymakers of all time when accounting for inflation.

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• 5. Academy honors and critical acclaim

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  Frank S. Nugent wrote in The New York Times that Disney had outdone himself and created something as important cinematically as The Birth of a Nation. Variety magazine stated the illusion was so perfect it approached real greatness. Harrison's Reports called the entertainment suitable for everyone while marveling at the mechanical ingenuity involved. Walt Disney received an Academy Honorary Award consisting of one full-size statuette plus seven miniature ones presented by Shirley Temple. The film was also nominated for Best Musical Score at the 11th Academy Awards. Sergei Eisenstein called it the greatest film ever made while Charlie Chaplin praised its achievement. Rolling Stone ranked it fourth on their list of greatest animated films of all time.

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• 6. Theme parks and merchandise empire

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  Snow White themed merchandise generated sales equivalent to over $200 million adjusted for inflation immediately following release. Hats, dolls, garden seeds, and glasses became popular items sold to fans worldwide. Snow White's Enchanted Wish opened as an attraction at Disneyland on opening day in 1955. The ride later became known as Snow White's Scary Adventures until being renamed again in 2020. A new roller coaster called Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opened during Fantasyland expansion from 2012 to 2014. Disney used profits from the film to finance a new $4.5 million studio in Burbank that remains the site today. The intellectual property has been franchised across video games including Kingdom Hearts and mobile titles like Queen's Return.

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