“See for yourself what the genius of Walt Disney has created in
his first full length feature production,” proclaimed the
original trailer for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released
on this day in 1938. Based on the famous fairy tale by the
Brothers Grimm, Snow White opened with the Wicked Queen asking
her magic mirror the question “Who is the fairest one of all?”
The mirror gives its fateful answer: Snow White, the queen’s
young stepdaughter. Ordered by the queen to kill the young
princess, a sympathetic woodsman instead urges Snow White to
hide in the forest; there she encounters a host of friendly
animals, who lead her to a cottage inhabited by the Seven
Dwarfs: Sleepy, Dopey, Doc, Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful and Happy.
Eventually, in the classic happy ending viewers would come to
expect as a Disney trademark, love conquers all as the dwarfs
defeat the villainous queen and Snow White finds love with a
handsome prince. Walt Disney’s decision to make Snow White,
which was the first animated feature to be prod