The Nine Disney Animated Masterpieces
Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty
Cross cut back to some festivity at the dwarfs’ cottage where a jolly evening of entertainment contrasts dramatically with the dark evil of the preceding sequence. The camera trucks out of the forest toward a brightly lighted window of the...
Here Walt made another excision, a big one, eliminating the “Soup Eating Sequence”, which had been fully brilliantly and painstakingly animated by another superior early Disney artist, Ward Kimball. Along with it another song bit the dust too, Churchill/Morey’s “The...
Assigned to Fred Moore (1911-1952) this “Bedroom Sequence” – as it became known – was one of the first to be animated. Snow White yawns and stretches and starts to wonder whether the “children” have returned then notices seven pairs...
As noted in Disney historian Leonard Maltin’s 1973 book The Disney Films, there is much “cross-cutting” in subsequent sequences of Snow White. The first of these happens now, as the film “cuts” from the dwarfs’ march home back to their...
After that blackout on Snow White and critters cleaning the cottage, Churchill’s glorious music punctuated with melodic clinking introduces the dwarfs’ song. The film employs effectively what is called in cinematic parlance a “telescoping wipe”, in this case brilliantly modified:...
The screen fades to black and now the film presents a whole new delightful surprise. So far it has established an already powerfully-engrossing storyline involving the romantic or dramatic relationships of four realistically-drawn human characters – the “Snow White half”...
Declaring this dwelling to be “adorable – just like a doll’s house”, Snow White dashes up to it with a little skip in her step and all her new animal buddies follow her, last of all that green-shelled turtle which...
Crossfade quickly out of the darkness to Queen Grimhilda (her name is never mentioned in the film) seated upon her magnificent throne with peacock feathers splayed behind it. She is addressing someone in front of her with instructions to take...
Panicked by the Prince’s intrusion out of her dreams into her “real” life, Snow White immediately flees from him, running into the castle amidst a flurry of those white doves. The camera follows her escape with a diagonal pan to...
Walt realized that for winning the hearts and minds of his audience to sympathize with his heroine a fairly realistic human design and movement was absolutely necessary – not to mention for the credibility of the Prince, the Evil Queen...
