Ward Kimball nearly quit after his two main sequences (the dwarfs eating soup and building a bed for Snow White, respectively) were cut.Walt Disney convinced him to stay by giving him the character of Jiminy Cricket in the next feature, Pinocchio (1940).
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There are only 11 human characters in the film - Snow White, the Dwarfs, the Queen, the Prince, and the Huntsman.
One of only two personally produced Walt Disney feature-length animated films not to carry the screen credit “Walt Disney Presents”. Instead, the first credit reads “A Walt Disney Feature Production” (since it was Disney’s first feature-length film). The other personally-produced Disney film not to say “Walt Disney Presents” was “Fantasia”, which, in its roadshow release, contained no written credits at all except for the intermission card, and in its general release, contained only the title “Fantasia” in its opening credits.
When the movie was released, it was generally accepted that the correct plural form of “dwarf” was “dwarfs”. J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” (published a year earlier) and later “Lord of the Rings” gradually popularized the uncommon variant “dwarves”, so that the dwarfs in this movie are today often erroneously referred to as “dwarves” and the title even given as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”.
Marge Champion served as a movement model for Snow White; some of this animation was later reworked for Maid Marion in Disney’s Robin Hood (1973).
Dancer Marge Champion, whose movements as a dancer were rotoscoped to be used as guide for Snow White, married and divorced one of the Disney animators on the film, Art Babbitt. She later married, danced and acted on film and stage with famed choreographer and directorGower Champion.
As it’s widely known, every country where the movie has been translated has its own set of seven names for the Dwarfs, including Germany, home of the original fairy tale. However, in the original tale (by brothers Jacob Grimm & Wilhelm Grimm) the dwarfs have no individual names at all.
Storyboards for a sequel to this movie were discovered in the Disney Company vault titled “Snow White Returns”. Upon examining the length of the script and storyboards it seem like it was meant to be a short film than a full length movie. It was also meant to include revised versions of the “Soup” & “Bed Bulding” scenes that were excluded from the movie itself. The real reason for why this sequel never went further than preproduction is anyone’s guess. It’s unknown if Walt Disney really wanted this to be made in the first place. The whole storyboard to this unmade short is viewable on the Snow White Blu-ray.
In the original fairy tale, the Queen dies when she is forced to dance in burning metal shoes.
Because none of the dwarfs leave Snow White’s side after she eats the apple, and none of them have any interaction with the outside world, it is impossible for the Prince to have learned where Snow White was or what happened to her.
To give Snow White a more natural look, some of the ink and paint artists started applying their own rouge on her cheeks. When Walt Disney asked one how they would apply the rouge correctly for each cel, she responded, “What do you think we’ve been doing all our lives?”
In the last scene, the Prince shimmies. The cels weren’t lined up correctly when the scene was shot, and his body shakes. Walt Disney was horrified when he saw the mistake in the color dailies, and wanted it corrected. No money was available to make the correction because the film was already far over budget, so Walt’s brother and business partner, Roy O. Disney, declared, “Let the Prince shimmy!” and so he did - until 1993, when the mistake was corrected during Disney’s digital restoration of the film.
Publicity material relates that production employed 32 animators, 102 assistant, 167 “in-betweeners”, 20 layout artists, 25 artists doing water color backgrounds, 65 effects animators, and 158 female inkers and painters. 2,000,000 illustrations were made using 1500 shades of paint.
The British Board of Film Censors (now, the British Board of Film Classification) gave the film an A-certificate upon its original release. This resulted in a nationwide controversy as to whether the enchanted forest and the witch were too frightening for younger audiences. Nevertheless, most local authorities simply overrode the censor’s decision and gave the film a U-certificate.
Was the first of many Disney films to have its premiere engagement at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. At the end of the film’s initial engagement there, all the velvet seat upholstery had to be replaced. It seems that young children were so frightened by the sequence of Snow White lost in the forest that they wet their pants, and consequently the seats, at each and every showing of the film.
At a recording session, Lucille La Verne, the voice of the Wicked Queen, was told by Walt Disney’s animators that they needed an older, raspier version of the Queen’s voice for the Old Witch. Ms. Laverne stepped out of the recording booth, returned a few minutes later, and gave a perfect “Old Hag’s voice” that stunned the animators. When asked how she did it, she replied, “Oh, I just took my teeth out.”
- 25 songs were written for the movie but only eight were used
- Deanna Durbin auditioned for the voice of Snow White, but was not chosen because Walt Disney felt her voice was too mature.
- Was the first film to ever have a soundtrack recording album released for it.
- Because Walt Disney Pictures did not have its own music publishing company when the earlier animated films were produced, all the rights to publish the music and songs from this film are actually still controlled by the Bourne Co. In later years, the Studio was able to acquire back the rights to the music from all of the other films, except this one. Prior to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), a movie soundtrack recording was unheard of and with little value to a movie studio.
