Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34 in VHS
• Released on: 1994-10-25
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 83 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
One of the brightest nuggets from Disney's golden age, this 1937 film is almost dizzying in its meticulous construction of an enchanted world, with scores of major and minor characters (including fauna and fowl), each with a distinct identity. When you watch Snow White's intricate, graceful movements of fingers, arms, and head all in one shot, it is not the technical brilliance of Disney's artists that leaps out at you, but the very spirit of her engaging, girl-woman character. When the wicked queen's poisoned apple turns from killer green to rose red, the effect of knowing something so beautiful can be so terrible is absolutely elemental, so pure it forces one to surrender to the horror of it. Based on the Grimm fairy tale, Snow White is probably the best family film ever to deal, in mythic terms, with the psychological foundation for growing up. It's a crowning achievement and should not be missed. --Tom Keogh

Joel Siegel, Good Morning America
"One of the great films of all time, one of the best dvd's ever."

Adrienne Maxwell, Home Theatres Magazine
"No classic has been better-restored than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recently released as a two-disc DVD that's destined to become the standard by which all classic releases are judged. It is, in a word, awesome."

Customer Reviews

Disney Magic Makes SNOW WHITE Classic DVD
I was extremely excited to receive this DVD.... Upon opening it, one gets the feeling that it is truly a special edition. The packaging is very nice: the DVD box is sturdy with two openings for each disk. The pamphlet inside the DVD is gorgeously produced and very helpful.

My first impression is that Disney has spent much time making this DVD user-friendly. There is an abundance of directions and drawings showing you what is on the disk and how to get there. Since there are two disks and a KINGDOM of information to pour through, these directions are very welcome (even to this seasoned DVD-viewer!)

Disney pulls out some familiar faces to make the experience as warm as possible: Disney himself appears in various footage; Angela Lansbury narrates the documentary and provides a "tour" of the disks; Michael Eisner shows up; and Barbra Streisand sings a specially recorded version of "Some Day My Prince Will Come".

SNOW WHITE, the movie, looks gorgeous and, although old fashioned, is quite wonderful. SNOW WHITE, the double-disk, is a lot of information to wade through. I am amazed at the amount of behind-the-scenes film that exists! Disney must have suspected that he was creating a classic - he filmed every aspect of it! I especially enjoy the HALL OF ART section. There are 3 halls of various story art (i.e. "The cottage"; "The castle"; "the Forest"; etc.) Although initially I found it hard to move from hall to hall, I eventually figured it out. The animated HALLS are extraordinary and the art that "hangs" there is incredible -- various renderings and attempts at bringing the story and locales of SNOW WHITE alive. It's even more incredible that Disney Co. held on to these papers for all these years.

Well, in case you can't tell, I highly recommend the special SNOW WHITE disks. You will spend days looking at everything that is included -- or you can opt to spend an hour and a half viewing the original,gorgeous film that started the Disney empire....

Timeless film; handsome DVD package
Disney's first "Platinum Edition" DVD is a terrific 2-disc set that every DVD fan should keep for all eternity. (I received an early, free copy from Amazon which allowed me to review it before the Oct 9th release date. This is a promotion by both Amazon and Buena Vista.) The THX-certified video transfer of the movie is blemish-free, almost always sharp, and has only an occasional softness perhaps due to age. Colors look splendid. The sound is clean and without a scratch, although some dialogs lack detail. The 5.1 audio remix provides mildly effective separation and bass for the background music. Otherwise, it is neither better nor worse than the included original mono soundtrack.

The supplements on the first disc includes a 40-minute retrospective documentary that actually serves as a nice introduction of the supplements on the second disc. For nearly every aspect mentioned in the documentary, the extras on the second disc cover at length. There is an audio commentary track by historian John Canemaker that includes contemporary recordings of Walt reminiscing about the difficulties and fortunes during the making of the film. The commentary reveals that Deanna Durbin was once considered for the voice of Snow White, but she was deemed "too old". Canemaker, besides introducing each of Walt's recordings, also provides excellent scene-by-scene analyses. After the movie is over, Michael Eisner introduces Barbara Streisand's decidedly more mature rendition of "Somewhere My Prince Will Come". The first disc also includes four games -- two for set-top players, two as DVD-ROM content.

The second disc contains a large amount of archival material of the movie. There are over 400 stills (all high-quality scans) of pencil tests, backgrounds, layouts, character designs, photos of the voice talents, photos of the production, the premiere, the 1937 pressbook, merchandise, and posters. There are quite a bit of video content as well. Notable is a new, nicely conceived, 40-minute segment called "Disney Through the Years"; it chronicles SNOW WHITE's theatrical releases in every decade (all trailers are shown) as well as Disney's accomplishments through the years. There are the original credit sequences with the RKO logo. There are deleted scenes that were fully animated and dubbed, one of which is a spectacular soup-eating scene. There are scenes that were conceptualized but were abandoned before animation, such as a dream sequence for one of Snow White's songs. There is a segment about the film's restorations in 1987, '93, and 2001. There are also vintage video of voice actors, models for live action references, techniques used in animation (two excerpts of Disney's "Tricks of our Trade" TV show are included).

And there is more! There is a half-hour live radio broadcast of the film's premiere in which many celebrities are interviewed. There is another half-hour radio program in 1938 in which several songs from the movie are performed. There are two 4-minute radio interviews of Walt Disney by Cecil B. DeMille, one of which was recorded on the eve of the premiere. There are eight radio commercials from the 50s and 60s. There are recordings of two deleted songs, one of which, we are told, were only recently discovered in Disney's archives. There are also text screens about the film's production and Walt's life and career. A nice inclusion is the English translation of the Grimms Brothers' "Snow White."

Future Platinum Edition DVDs will include BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN, THE LION KING, BAMBI, THE JUNGLE BOOK, CINDERELLA, THE LITTLE MERMAID, LADY AND THE TRAMP and 101 DALMATIANS. It disappoints me that DUMBO will not be a Platinum Edition (it will come out Oct 21st as a "Gold Edition" DVD). It irks me even more that only one Platinum Edition DVD will be sold each year for only a limited time; thereafter it will be put on a TEN-YEAR moratorium. This will no doubt lead to buying frenzies, so run, don't walk, to your nearest personal computer and order this SNOW WHITE DVD right away. I do not oppose releasing one Platinum DVD per year, since I understand it takes time and care to produce these great discs. But I do oppose Disney's long-standing policy of putting their video releases on moratorium for long, long periods. Their rationale has been that if people own the movie on video, they may not want to see it in theaters. Not true. Seeing this spectacular SNOW WHITE DVD has actually increased my desire to see the film in a theater.

About Time!
Having read (much to my amusement, and amazement) the previous reviews of this upcoming release, I will not outline, as have some, the entire movie, which everybody knows anyway. That said,I will note that virtually no one mentioned my own favorite segment, the "party" sequence at the dwarf's cottage. Not only is it a brilliant piece of filmmaking, it is just plain fun, something I play over and over again.

The movie as a whole is, quite simply, a masterpiece, regardless of the opinions of a few feminists out there. It is a 60 year old movie after all.

My main reason for writing is to comment on a few of the additional features. I really see no need of Barbra Streisand on this release. Secondly, why do we need Angela Lansbury taking us on a "VIP tour" of the bonus features. I am quite capable of picking the features I want to see. And one of those does not appear to be included, namely, "The Old Mill", the beautiful short made to test the efficacy of the newly developed (at the time) Multiplane Camera. There is a "camera and filter test" segment listed in the extras and perhaps it is to be found in that, but it is not specifically listed, as is "The Goddess of Spring".

I will reserve further comment until I actually see the DVD release (I am intrigued by the comments on the quality of a DVD that is weeks if not months from being released), but I do feel obliged to remark on the review by "Why Bother" in Houston, TX. who seemed mightily put out by what he/she considered to be the "full screen, chopped up version" of this film and wondered: "Why not give us the whole movie, in widescreen format, so it can be enjoyed as it was meant to be?" For one quite excellent reason: It is not and never was a widescreen movie. The 1.33:1 ratio that you see on your TV screen is, in fact, the original format of the movie and we ARE seeing it "as it was meant to be". There have been some misguided attempts to "stretch" these older Disney classics to fit the wider screens in todays theaters but they fail miserably resulting in either thepicture being squashed or the top and bottom being cut off. So, fret not about the picture being full screen: that IS how it was made.