Everyone’s talking about... Snow White

DISNEY has promised its live-action Snow White remake will ‘avoid reinforcing stereotypes’, after 4ft 5in actor Peter Dinklage slammed the plan to retell a ‘backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave’. Does this mean the fairy tale’s going woke?

It already has! Even Disney’s 1937 film is tamer than the legends it’s based on. Originally, the evil queen was a cannibal who demands Snow White’s heart, liver and lungs to devour. In one telling, Snow White is just seven (it’s been calculated she’s still only 14 in the movie, yet marries a 31-year-old). The movie was still terrifying: after its release, one US cinema had to replace its upholstery as so many children wet themselves.

What was the film based on?

A story published in Germany in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm, but there are hundreds of versions. In Italy, Snow White lives with robbers; in Greece it’s 40 giants; and in Russia, 12 brothers cursed to be hawks. In Scottish legend, villainess Silver-Tree doesn’t ask a magic mirror if she’s beautiful – but a trout.

How did the original movie come about?

It was the first feature-length animation and Hollywood thought it would fail. It didn’t, and they gave Walt Disney an Oscar – plus seven smaller statuettes. Adriana Caselotti, who voiced Snow White, got just $20 a day, and her contract barred her from playing any other role ever. The dwarfs had no names in the fairy tales but a 1912 stage show called them Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick, Whick and Quee. Disney considered 50 names including Biggy-Wiggy, Blabby, Hoppy-Jumpy, Flabby and Shifty before settling on those we know. Animators felt ‘Dopey’ sounded too modern, but Walt won them over by explaining that the word was coined by Shakespeare. It wasn’t; he lied.

Are there other Snow White films?

Dozens – including a sex comedy from France, with dwarfs including Horny. In 1969, an unknown Steven Spielberg was hired to direct a Swinging Sixties version with Snow White cohabiting with seven young men. It came to nothing, so he dodged that poisoned apple…