At the time of Snow White and the Seven Dwarf’s release in 1937, there was a lot of skepticism over whether the art of animation could be used to make a successful full-length feature or not. During Hollywood’s Golden Age, cartoons were typically presented as shorts in cinemas ahead of the movie audience members paid to see. In fact, Walt Disney and his company often produced animated shorts for cinemas in the form of the Silly Symphonies series. It wasn’t until Disney conceived of the idea of producing an animated movie in 1933 that plans for an animated Snow White adaptation began to take shape in 1934.
Based on the 1812 German fairy tale Schneewittchen by The Brothers Grimm, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs centers on the titular princess escaping the clutches of her vain and murderous stepmother, the Evil Queen. After the latter hires a huntsman to kill the young princess with her heart brought back as proof of her death, Snow White flees to the woods and takes refuge inside the seven dwarfs’ cottage. After befriending the dwarfs, she stays with them for a bit before the Evil Queen attempts to kill her again, this time disguised as the Old Peddler. Snow White is eventually revived by the prince she met earlier, and goes to live with him in his castle. While the 2025 live-action Snow White remake aims to build on the legacy of its animated predecessor with Rachel Zegler in the titular role, it’s worth revisiting what made the original film a timeless classic.
Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs Truly Revolutionized Animation
The Movie Redefined What Animation Could Be
The first thing that stands out about 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the animation. As the movie that revolutionized the animation techniques that are still in use today (albeit with more advanced technology), its quality far exceeds the standards set by the animated shorts of its decade. One way that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’s animation differs from its contemporaries is that it aims to be as life-like as possible. One technique that the movie uses to achieve this is rotoscoping. In this case, the scenes were recorded with live actors performing the actions, and the animators traced over the footage frame by frame to capture fluid, lifelike motion. This technique was primarily used for the characters of Snow White, the Evil Queen, Prince Charming and the Huntsman.
For the other characters, more traditional techniques were used to capture their more cartoony qualities. This technique was chiefly used on the dwarfs themselves, the Evil Queen when she donned the disguise of the Old Peddler, and the woodland animals. While a combination of rotoscoping and more traditional animation techniques sounds like a terrible combination that’s bound to distract audiences, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs made it work in perfect harmony. While Snow White and the Evil Queen are easy to identify as the more traditionally human characters, the dwarfs still possess human qualities despite being given more exaggerated features and other cartoony qualities.
For instance, each dwarf is given his own distinct design, body language, and facial expressions to match their given personalities. As such, there is no confusing each individual dwarf, despite most of them being depicted as bearded old men. Another way that the dwarfs easily stand out from the traditional human characters like Snow White is that they’re given a gnome-like appearance to present them as fantasy characters. This works considering they live in a small cottage in the woods, not to mention magic clearly exists in Snow White’s world, as evidenced by the Evil Queen’s talents in the dark arts. When these characters are brought together onscreen, their interactions feel organic, and their different designs never feel distracting.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ Critical Reception
Site
Score
IMDb
7.6/10
Metacritic
Meta Score: 96/100
User Score: 8.0
Rotten Tomatoes
Tomatometer: 97%
Audience Score: 78%
While the lifelike animation makes every character visually engaging to the viewer, one cannot discount the film’s color palette. It’s the backgrounds and overall scene composition that truly make Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs pop. The movie uses bright, vibrant colors in the scenes that feature Snow White to capture her childlike spirit and innocence. Likewise, the movie tends to use a lot of black and dark color tones in scenes that feature the Evil Queen to succinctly capture her depravity and lack of empathy.
In scenes that take place in the woods, the images never feel flat due to the use of a multiplane camera and the layering of images. Besides placing the cells featuring the characters on top of the backgrounds, other foreground elements like trees and bushes were also layered on top of these images using planes to give the illusion of 3D space. This results in an immersive experience that not even a live-action film could pull off. This is most notable in the scene where Snow White escapes to the woods and encounters many terrifying trees and animals that frighten her. These ghastly images aren’t just terrifying for the fleeing heroine, but for the viewer as well.
Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs’ Voice Cast & Music Hold the Movie Together
The Voice Acting and Music Complement the Animation
While Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ animation does a lot of heavy lifting, none of it would come to life the way it does without the soundtrack, voice cast, and the musical score by Frank Churchill, Larry Morey, and Leigh Harline. Cast as Snow White herself, 18-year-old Adriana Caselotti presents her character as very lively and optimistic. She’s also very excitable and expressive in her elocution, most notably in the scenes where she interacts with the dwarfs. In scenes where Caselotti has to sing, her operatic voice and stage training allow the character to transition from speech to song just as fluidly as the animation itself. At no point does this transition feel abrupt or awkwardly placed.
Likewise, the voice actors for the dwarfs play off of Caselotti extremely well, as well as each other, resulting in a fun, sometimes humorous dynamic. The most underrated talent in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, however, is Lucille La Verne, who voices both the Evil Queen and her transformed counterpart, the Old Peddler. As the Evil Queen, La Verne uses a transatlantic accent to present her character as regal, yet full of jealousy and anger. As the Old Peddler, La Verne uses a raspier voice, but is also more expressive to convey the Evil Queen’s twisted sense of humor in this guise.
The animation is also perfectly synced to the score, resulting in a different immersive experience from that of a typical MGM musical of the decade. Whereas live-action musicals often rely on dance sequences, theatricality and the same practical stunts viewers would experience in a stage performance, the music in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is part of the movie’s action. This is most notable in the “Whistle While You Work” number, where there is no dancing or theatricality. It just depicts Snow White sweeping the floor and dusting the furniture, with the forest animals helping her tidy up the dwarfs’ cottage. With the music even syncing up to the characters’ actions and sound effects, the sequence has more in common with a modern music video than an old-fashioned musical performance. At the time of its release, there really was nothing like this movie.
Another way Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs uses its musical score to great effect is in heightening the tension and emotional impact of certain scenes. This is once again notable in the scene where Snow White escapes to the woods. Part of what makes this sequence such a terrifying experience is the juxtaposition of frightening images with fast-paced music to capture the anxiety Snow White is feeling while trying to survive harsh terrain. Snow White’s escape through the nightmarish forest was so perfectly executed that it could be viewed as its own stand-alone horror short. There’s a good reason why even those not too familiar with the movie know of this scene by reputation alone.
Despite Its Groundbreaking Animation, Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs’ Storytelling Is Flawed
For Better and Worse, the Animated Classic Is a Product of Its Time
With the amount of work that went into producing a high-quality animated feature like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, there’s no doubt that it stood the test of time as an artistic marvel, even with all the advances in animation technology. But despite the film’s groundbreaking qualities, it does have some storytelling flaws. These shortcomings are due in part to the movie being a product of its time. What’s more, the original fairy tale the movie is based on is itself problematic, at least under a modern lens. More specifically, it’s a story where the titular princess breaks into the dwarfs’ cottage after she escapes from her evil stepmother, eats their food, and makes a mess of their home, similar to what Goldilocks does in the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story. Additionally, the original story depicts the Evil Queen attempting to kill Snow White three times. She succeeds on the third try with the poisoned apple lodging itself in Snow White’s throat.
The most problematic aspect of the original fairy tale is how the prince is introduced. Unlike the Disney film, the prince does not meet Snow White until after she’s dead. After learning about her from the dwarfs, the prince agrees to take Snow White back to her father’s castle, but in one version of the story, he becomes obsessed with her corpse and takes her with him wherever he goes. It is during one of these trips that a servant trips and falls, which dislodges the poisoned apple from Snow White’s throat, effectively reviving her. From there, the prince proposes to her and she accepts his marriage proposal. Additionally, the Evil Queen is killed when she is forced to wear hot iron shoes and dance in them until she drops dead. Had Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs stayed faithful to its source material, it’s doubtful it would’ve become the beloved childhood classic it is today.
Knowing that they were adapting a dark story, Disney and his team mitigated the more problematic aspects by repurposing or rewriting some scenes. For instance, instead of Snow White eating the dwarfs’ food and making a mess of their home, the dwarfs are instead presented as untidy in the Disney film. This prompts Snow White to clean their house for them in exchange for letting her stay with them. This effectively makes Snow White’s decision to become the dwarfs’ housemaid her own instead of one that’s imposed on her by the dwarfs like in the original story. While this change is understandable, it also reinforces the harmful and outdated stereotype that men are naturally messy, while women are more prone to cleanliness and housework. This was, unfortunately, the accepted gender norm of the time. The original fairy tale at least subverted these stereotypes in its own twisted ways.
Despite Snow White’ and the Seven Dwarfs’ narrative flaws, it’s still a film that has aged surprisingly well, and is worthy of the praise it gets. Not only did it truly revolutionize animation as a medium, but it’s thanks to the techniques Disney and his team pioneered while making the film that animation is now its own industry. There’s no doubt that the upcoming live-action remake has its work cut out. It has no choice but to either meet the standards set by the original animated film, or better yet, surpass them. While the remake already missed a major opportunity to cast Little People actors as the seven dwarfs, from the trailer alone, it does look like it still wants to honor what came before while updating some aspects for a 21st Century audience. Whether it succeeds in building on the legacy of the animated classic while still being different enough to stand on its own remains to be seen. As for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it will always remain a wonderful classic, regardless of the remake’s quality.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is available on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital, and can be streamed on Disney+.
