Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

1937 Theatrical Release

Disney's first full-length animated feature, Snow White needs little introduction. As we watched this on Blu-Ray recently I was amazed by how much of the movie - songs, names, the look, whole scenes - has become part of popular culture, and indeed cliché in Disney or fairytale imaginings. I was also quite shocked by how much this movie stands up to anything that has been produced in the 73 years since it was first released. It's still funny, moving, sad, exciting and beautiful, and in Blu-Ray it looks exquisite. 

One particularly good trick on this and a couple of other Disney Blu-Rays is the use of something called 'DisneyView' which fills in the black strips on either side of the movie (for the early movies were not created in widescreen) with new art in keeping with the style of the film, which changes from scene to scene. It could be potentially distracting, but it fills a widescreen and complements the movie.

I intend to view all of Disney's Classics on DVD and Blu-Ray over the coming weeks and months, in order, and along with the often copious special features. Snow White's recent Blu-Ray is packed with featurettes and

2001 Collector's Edition DVD

galleries detailing not only the fascinating production of the film, but also revealing the history of Disney's Hyperion Studios, where the feature was made, along with Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse shorts. At the moment I'm reading an enthralling Walt Disney biography by Neal Gabler, and reading about the immense amount of work that Disney and his hundreds of employees put into Snow White complemented by the hours of informative talking heads and archive footage on the Blu-Ray combines to provide a first rate account that could hardly be bettered.

As well as the Blu-Ray features, we also watched those features from the original DVD release a decade or so ago (I think it was one of the first Disney releases of an old classic) that did not appear on the new release. It's a shame that not all features can make it to the new editions, and it means I have to keep the old

2009 Diamond Edition Blu-ray/DVD

copies hanging around, so I now have two copies of Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio... but it's worth it to see the additional Disneyland extracts, other deleted scenes and galleries of publicity. The Blu-Ray has an updated version of the DVD's Disney Through the Decades documentary, a 40 minute overview of Disney from the Alice cartoons to their acquisition of Pixar told by the likes of Angela Lansbury and Robby Benson, and split up by trailers of each re-release of Snow White. It's a fascinating look at how the Disney name and brand has grown and now reaches books, theatre, sports, TV, theme parks, and a few movies too.

I can't wait to view more Disney Classics, some of which I haven't revisited since I was a child, and a handful I've never even seen, and if all of the extra features are as good as they are for Snow White, it's going to be a fascinating experience.