DISNEY’S FIRST FEATURE

Evening Star, Issue 23147, 22 December 1938, Page 17

DISNEY’S FIRST FEATURE

‘ SNOW WHITE ’ TO-NIGHT AT OCTAGON The Walt Disney cult will be exalted by ‘ Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,’ which yesterday jammed the mammoth Radio City Music Hall (wrote the ‘ Daily Mirror’s ’ special reporter of a New York preview of the picture to open a Dunedin season at the Octagon at 10.30 to-night with a preferential preview screening). The master’s first feature-length production, ‘ Snow White ’ marks an epochal advance in the colour cartoons.

It sets a grim pace for the Disney imitators, a pace which probably will not be uniformly maintained even by Walt Disney himself. His technical crew, his sound crew, his musical arrangers, his artists, his idea-men, all merit a share in the awed acclaim which will be his after five years of effort on a feature-length fairy tale. Exquisite colour, persuasive music, and fanciful humour all contribute to the enchantment worked by the film from the first moment of its unreeling. At first astounded by the technical perfection of the production, the beholder is inclined to concentrate on it. But in just a moment the strangeness of the medium is forgotten—‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ’ have worked their- spell.

Without violating the familiar elementary plot of the fairy tale, the Disney artists have embroidered it with fanciful incidents 'and situations. The dwarfs themselves are most beguiling little creations, each an emphatic individualist who plays a consistent part in the trials and joys of the beset, but patient, “ Snow White.”

The little animals further Disney’s, exploration into the characteristic temperaments of the forest denizens. The jealous queen typifies the horror of her vice. The voice of her mirror is the awesome voice of truth. As for “ Snow White,” first brunette glamour girl of the screen, she represents a very ideal of girlish sweetness, innocence, and charm.