| | Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs [1938] |  | Director: David Hand
Actors: Roy Atwell, James Macdonald (ii), Marion Darlington, Otis Harlan, Billy Gilbert
Studio: Walt Disney Home Video
Category: Video
List Price: £15.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £15.98 (100%)
New (15) from £2.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 27
Format: Animated, Dolby, Pal, Surround Sound
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Universal, suitable for all
Media: VHS Tape
Running Time: 80 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
EAN: 5024165301098
ASIN: B000057833
Theatrical Release Date: February 4, 1938
Release Date: October 1, 2001
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: SUPER FAST SHIPPING, DISPATCHED SAME DAY FROM UK WAREHOUSE. GREAT VIDEO IN GOOD OR BETTER CONDITION. MORE GREAT BARGAINS IN OUR eSHOP. amazon.co.uk/shops/awesome_books_001
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was nicknamed "Disney's Folly" by contemporary observers; they doubted that the short cartoons shown before the main film could ever successfully make the transition from filler to feature presentation. Surely, no one would sit still for over an hour to watch an animated film, their eyes smarting from the bright colours on screen? Fortunately, Walt Disney and his army of artists persisted and the world's first full-length animated feature was finally released in 1937 to widespread acclaim.Adapted from the Grimm fairytale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is chillingly dark in places, reflecting its roots in European folklore, but the deft Disney touch ensures that the overall tone remains light and the story develops apace, swept along on the perfect musical score. Any lingering gloom is quickly dispelled by the superbly characterised dwarfs and by the humorous antics of the various irresistible fauna that threaten to steal the show in several scenes. The pioneering animation is breathtaking and songs such as "Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho" and "Whistle While You Work", now firmly embedded in popular culture, are seamlessly interwoven with the action. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs happens to be an interesting technological milestone in cinema history--it is also an enduring masterpiece of family entertainment. To the millions who have fallen under its spell over the years, this magical fairy tale remains one of Disney's most enchanting and best-loved films. Only Grumpy could resist. --Helen Baker VHS DescriptionVHS Special Features: All-new recording of "Some Day my Prince Will Come" performed by Barbra Streisand
The making of Snow White featurette
Deleted scene: "Music in Your Soup"
"Heigh-Ho" Sing-A-Long
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 Snow White November 7, 2007
Very impressed with the speed and effeciency of delivery. Watched it this afternoon, it has not lost any of its magic - well worth the money.
The best Disney movie of all time October 31, 2007
This is the movie that established Walt Disney's reputation as the master of children's cartoons. Even by today's exacting standards, the animation is top notch.
Perhaps the best test of Snow White's enduring charm and beauty is to sit a variety of children between the ages of 5 and 10 in front of it and watch how they become spellbound by it. Visually there is so much to see and enjoy. The detail is stunning. A collection of hugely talented and imaginiative people have vividly brought a stunning array of characters to life in a magical way - magical is truly the perfect word to describe this work of genius.
Of course, adults can enjoy Snow White again and again too. One of the joys of this movie is seeing your sons and daughters enjoy it as much as you did, when you first saw it. And, when you see it again after a gap of 25 years, its power still amazes you.
You could describe this movie as a rite of passage, something that every child should see, and why not - we all love a well-told story, which this unquestionably is. This is film that connects one generation to the next. Perhaps the only other movie that does this is "The Sound of Music".
My only gripe is that Disney releases it so rarely to preserve its value. So next time it comes out, I recommend you buy two copies because younger children will quickly damage the DVD in their eagerness to watch the film umpteen times.
What else can I say but thank you, Walt. It is a masterpiece.
The start of Disneyfication October 22, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's quite funny that today, as I trudged into University, the module we would be studying in the lecture was Animation, and the history behind it. As a young kid, I had seen Snow White many times, with varying experiences (mostly scared!) and so it was great to bring it all back this morning in what would normally be a few hours of boredom.
Snow White, released amazingly way back in 1938, could easily be one of the most important films ever created. That might sound ambitious, considering the other advances in life at the time, but to even dare and ask the audience to sit back and watch over an hour of animation was a gamble itself. In the early 1930's, a 'cartoon' was up to 6 minutes of black and drawings that could take months and months to make.
The reason this film actually was a milestone is because of Walt Disney's quick thinking....
1. Copyrighting Technicolour - The ability to master videos in full colour, which no other company could use)
2. Rota-scope - The ability to create life-like animations of people by tracing an original video of an actor. This was filmed with 2 actors and then drawn! This is how such life-like movements could be drawn by Snow White (just a young actor) and of course the evil queen.
3. "Disneyfication" begins - The original Snow White story was a grim and dark tale that had a clear moral. Walt Disney wanted this film to appear to an audience that could be entertained, hence for the first time, we get the 'happy ever after' ending. Note also how the whit, glamour, and humour normally associated with animations at the time was lost.
4. Technological advances - Disney had made a special machine (almost as high as a house) that generated the 3-D effects in the movie, and enhanced such features as wind, rain, and room-spiral actions. A massive machine separated the cells, and then could allow for precise arrangement to make shakey pictures and movements a thing of the past. Every movement, as you'll see, is 100% precice thanks to this clumbersome contraption.
Of course, we should all know the tale of Disney's Snow White by now, and even if you don't it'd be a shame to spoil the film. While in typical Disney fashion, its fun and suitable for the family, with plenty of 'simple' gags and funny moments from the 7 dwarfs, it does have its scary moments. I'm not trying to sound like a wet-blanket - it's just a fact, and even now looking back I can understand why I hid by the couch cushions at certain scenes. But this surely proves how animation has changed - what was once an attempt to bring a watcher into the film and let them experience a moral, now is just a cheap attempt at making money at School Half Terms, when Mr and Mrs Average clogg up the roads with 4x4's, and head down the cinema's!
It reeks of elements from it's time, whether it be the Mask that speaks in the Queens mirror (its actually a voodoo style mask, as people at the time was fascinated by cultures abroad, especially Egyptology), or the character of the Evil Queen that was actually a spiff off a celeb at the time, Better Davis, who herself played evil characters.
Snow White is a milestone in animation history with beautiful artwork, and though its later counterparts may have easily exceeded it in terms of entertainment (the 40's/50's were a good era) they all still kept the roots of teaching morals up until the funny but lame 60's (The Jungle Book, with its laughably bad spiff of The Beatles. Still a great film!). If you've seen all the other Disney films and think they can't be topped, this should be watched anyway for the education of how perfect animation can be, and what we miss today.
DISNEY'S FIRST FEATURE LENGTH ANIMATED FILM IS AN ALL TIME CLASSIC October 11, 2007
To call Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a classic goes without saying that practically everyone has called it such. It is a great film, but there are certain factors that make it so, and without them the film could've gone the other way and become important more for its technical breakthrough(s) than for the content. The fact is a story with the utmost simplicity like Snow White, the chief characters- Prince Charming, the wicked Queen/witch, and of course Snow White- are all very basic, simple, if not one dimensional than basely two-dimensional characters. It's appropriate, to be sure, as it is based off a Grimm fairy tale. Despite the beauty and charm of the early scenes, its really on par entertainment-wise with the Silly Symphonies Walt Disney produced in the 30's.
This also goes without saying that Snow White's run through the woods is one of the highlights of the film, still bringing a sense of terror and the surreal for the adults in the audience (if you're a little kid it could be one of the scariest things you've ever seen). But then- just as Snow White settles into her little 'hide-out' in a house she thinks occupied by messy, orphaned children- we're introduced to the seven dwarfs, and this is where the film picks up most of its energy, laughs, and complete and total balance. In a way, not to analyze too deep for a filmed fairy tale, they each represent the different sides of men, and so it gives the film the appropriate human dimensions it needs (in this, also setting up practically all the hand-drawn Disney films of the next seventy years or so). It's tempting to say which are my favorite, or whom I got the most enjoyment out of. There would be three, two for more obvious reasons, one for subtle ones.
Dopey, who is almost a perfect re-incarnation (in Disney Dwarf form of course) of Harpo Marx- he's a lovable idiot, with barely two sounds in the course of the film, who (and I hate to sound sappy) brings out the laughing kid in anyone. Grumpy, who I found to be maybe the most complete character in the film, has attitude to spare, and gets comic bit after comic bit happen to him from the animators- and yet, there is heart behind him, and when its revealed in key parts of the film, they act as the most emotional points. There is also Sleepy, who also barely says a word, but who's physical movements are really divine little moments among the big, inspired musical numbers. Indeed, there are little moments throughout the film that help make up the greatness: the mood and atmosphere in the Queen's dungeon of witchcraft; the scene where the dwarfs go to sleep (a fly that rests on Sleepy's nose); the traits given to the animals in the forest (that little turtle is hilarious).
All these parts help to add to the basic structure of the story- Queen wants the good looks, goes after her once the hunter fails, gives her the poison apple, then it goes even more predictable from their (though in a good way). The detail of the animated scenes, the backgrounds, the visual effects, are often mesmerizing. And the songs, which were some of the most standard I heard from the Disney oeuvre as a kid (they were always on those Disney 'Sing-along' videos) are still whimsical most of the time. Then there is also the icing on the cake- the voice of Snow White, Adriana Caselotti (who got contracted into this being her only film role, based of producer/uncredited director Disney's insistence), brings something to the film that's hard to describe, except to say that it's, well, serene.
Even if she's not the strongest character, her main goal of making people around her feel good and inspiring happiness makes her watchable, and in a way lovable. It's a very curious, though important, factor that she (and Prince Charming and the Queen pre-witch) are animated very traditionally, apart from the cartoon-like dwarfs and animals. Its a reminder of the film's, and Disney's, strongest success- that as an imagined and visualized fairy tale, the representation is strong, and touching. In the new century studios move away from hand-drawn animated films, but it's a good idea to look back to the early Disney films, if not for just nostalgia (or to watch with your kids) to get a sense of the experimentation, the purity of it. It remains one of only several animated films, from any country or style, to have the crucial elements come together- music, voice-talent, usage of colors, and cinematography.
 enchanting yet twisted disney picture September 11, 2007
2 out of 11 found this review helpful
To date, this is is still one of my favourite Disney films alongside 'Jungle Story' and 'My Mother's A Cat'. Back in 1932, Walt Disney had just discovered animation and was testing it out with some sample footage...that sample footage was to become 'Snow White'.
An elegant film, shot originally in black and white, then with the color restored in the eighties, it is supposedly a family film but I would advise not letting anyone under about fifteen see it as it has some deeply disturbing themes.
Snow White is seemingly a nice helpful young girl, but many people gloss over how she breaks and enters into a property not belonging to her. She also strikes up a very suggestable friendship with seven small men who she meets in the woods, which I found rather sinister.
Then there is the issue of the queen trying to kill Snow White in various evil ways, another very adult theme in my eyes. It is rumoured in the original version the queen kills one of the dwarves in a rage of frenzy.
The seven dwarves, Grumpy, Bashful, Dopey, Happy, Sneezy, Sanchez and Sleepy are overused in the film and are confusing. It is hard telling which drawf is which and there were times I had to leave the room because I was finding it too stressful working out who was who.
Snow White is voiced by Margot Kidder and all of the Dwarves are played by Burl Ives, both actors turn in adequate performances but are upstaged by the Queen, voiced by the great Fay Wray.
The DVD has been withdrawn I understand people were questioning the 'U' certificate and there has been talk of raising it to at least a '12'. When this move is made I for one will be a lot happier and might start enjoying the film again.
|
|
|
Learn how to have your own
Amazon Shop
Travel Maps and Guides
zeugma
| | Holiday Travel |
alpharooms.com for cheap holiday deals in spain and worldwide
Disneyland Paris for a great family holiday or short break.
Holday Cottages throughout Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland and France with Cottages4you
Hilton - need we say more, you will find Hilton Hotels in most areas throughout Britain, in cities and in the countryside.
Don't forget Travel Insurance
Airport Parking
|
|
|
|
