Snow White
About Snow White
Snow White is hated by a queen who tries to have her killed. She reaches the woods, where dwarfs shelter her. The queen's attempts fail, and Snow White comes through them with the dwarfs' help. Marguerite Clark plays Snow White, repeating the part she had played on Broadway.
Cast & crew
More about Snow White
J. Searle Dawley directed. Winthrop Ames adapted his own 1912 Broadway play Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, taken from the Grimm tale of 1812. Adolph Zukor produced for Famous Players. Paramount distributed it. Creighton Hale is the prince. Dorothy Cumming plays the queen.
Themes
Background
Famous Players released it at Christmas 1916, when filmed fairy tales were still features built around stage stars.
In film history
Disney traced his 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs back to seeing this film as a teenager.
Making
Ames's play, not a new treatment of the fairy tale, is the direct source. Dawley staged Clark's stage business for the camera.
Music
Silent.
Notes
- Clark had created the role in Ames's 1912 stage production and plays it again here.
- Alice Washburn and Richard Barthelmess are in the cast.
- Walt Disney saw the film at fifteen. He later used the Grimm story for his first animated feature, in 1937.
- The picture is silent, a romantic fantasy rather than a cartoon.
- It runs about six reels.
Scenes
- The queen orders Snow White destroyed.
- The dwarfs take her in in the woods.
- Clark plays the same Snow White she had played on Broadway in 1912.
Influenced by
- The Brothers Grimm tale, by way of Winthrop Ames's 1912 play
Influenced
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), which Disney linked to seeing this film
