A new concept of entertainment was born on December 21, 1937, a date still remembered by the film industry. It was the world premiere of Walt Disney's first feature length cartoon – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Labeled "Disney's folly", critics were more than skeptical. The thought of people sitting through 83 minutes of animation seemed inconceivable at the time. Cartoons were thought of as strictly fillers, not features.
However, in the true Hollywood tradition, thousands turned out to see the publicized event. With celebrities such as Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Charles Laughton, Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard, it was the kind of opening of which Disney had always dreamed. And the reviews were sensational. As one animator described it, "The andienee was so taken by the magic of what they saw that they would clap after each individual sequence." It was like a reaction to a hit on Broadway; nothing like this had happened in features before. The cartoon had definitely come into its own as a feature attraction.
Disney had been thinking of doing an animated feature for some time. Apart from knowing that a feature cartoon, if successful, would make more money, he wanted to be able to create a larger Format – one that would give him a chance to come up with more complex plots and more elaborate characters. In short, Disney wanted to be able to take a story and provide it with a kind of magical realism that was beyond the reach of live action.
The production of Snow White actually began in 1934, but it had probably been churning around in Disney's mind long before then. He had been fascinated with the story since boyhood. In fact, it was the first movie he had ever seen and he fell the story had a good plot with mass appeal.
[…]
