"Well, once there was a princess".

Rating: 8/10 (10 July 2011)

With this review, I've hit a goal I've been aiming for, that of reviewing every film on the American Film Institute's list of Top 100 Films which came out in 1997. I saved this for last because, let's face it, I'm a guy who's more at home with a good Western than a Disney fairy tale, and it would look pretty silly to be seen watching this picture by someone pulling up the driveway and looking though the bay window. So for this viewing, I grabbed my two year old granddaughter for cover, and casually mentioned to her mom and my wife that "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was about to begin.
You know, I must have seen this as a kid because I remember a fair amount about it, especially the 'Heigh-Ho' song and the talking mirror business. Watching today I was a bit surprised by some of the scary elements in the story, starting off with the Evil Queen's command to the Huntsman to bring back the heart of Snow White in a box. I thought about that for some time, and then wondered what ever happened to the Huntsman. Someone spilled the beans about the pig heart gimmick, but the Queen never got her revenge as far as I could tell.
Since everyone knows the story, I'll mention some of the things I thought about in context of the picture's release in 1937. The term 'Jiminy Crickets' was used twice in the story, but the character of Jiminy Cricket didn't appear in a Disney picture until 1940's "Pinocchio". Up till then, using the term was sort of a sanitized way of taking the Lord's name in vain, sometimes exclaimed as 'Jiminy Christmas'. Judy Garland's character Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" says it when startled by the Wizard's lightning and thunder display - "Oh! Oh! Jiminy Crickets!"
There's also the Evil Queen's use of a poisoned apple to put Snow White to sleep, reminiscent of the Bible story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit. But the thing that really intrigued me was when my daughter questioned Snow White's brown eyes. I didn't think much of it until my wife joined the picture in progress about ten minutes later. She remarked on the same thing. It never occurred to me that Walt Disney avoided the blond, blue-eyed stereotype that seemed to be the characteristic of an ideal princess. I haven't read any other observations on this, so I'm just throwing it out there.
Anyway, as an animated classic, this one holds up pretty well after seventy plus years, paving the way for a Disney industry that's still going strong. Considering that the animation was all done by hand makes it even more amazing - the characters, the animals, the Seven Dwarfs all come to life in a magical way that enthralled my granddaughter, keeping her rapt attention until the very end. There's only one thing you can say to that - 'Jiminy Crickets'!