By WALT DISNEY [pp.7,14]
THERE WERE several reasons, one sentimental and the rest practical, why I decided on “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” as the basis of our studio’s lirst feature-length picture for RKO-Radio.
In the first place, I can remember seeing “Snow White” as a play when I was a small boy. I saved some of the money I made from my newspaper route to see it, and I was so impressed I could have seen it over and over again.
But to get down to practical reasons, here they are: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is known and beloved in practically every country in the world. The seven dwarfs, we knew, were “naturals” for the medium of our pictures. In them we could instill boundless humor, not only as to their physical appearances, but in their mannerisms, personalities, voices, and actions.
In addition, with most of the action taking place in and around the dwarfs’ cottage in the woods, we realized that there was great opportunity for introducing appealing little birds and animals of the type we've had success with in the past.
Lastly, the human characters were fanciful enough to allow us a great deal of leeway in our treatment of them.
As far as I can say, the whole idea of making this feature crystallized in 1933, although I can’t tell how long the seed of the idea had been in my mind.
In fact, 1934 found us with a pretty complete adaptation of the story, and thousands of sketches, gags, backgrounds, character models and so on had been worked out. Because we had no recedent for this undertaking, we had to discard much of the preliminary material-material which had meant hours of hard work, too.
We haven’t any doubt that our loyal fans will take “Snow White” to their hearts.
