Fairy Tale Friday--Snow White (silent film, 1916)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

This week we begin to look at versions of Snow White on film. Today we begin with the oldest version I can find which was made in 1916.

This silent film was directed by J. Searle Dawley and was adapted by playwright Winthrop Ames from his own 1912 Broadway play Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was in turn adapted from the 1812 Grimms fairy tale.

Interesting fact number one: The director Dawley also made a 14-minute horror "photoplay" of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in 1910 which is the earliest known screen adaptation of  the novel.

 The film stars Marguerite Clark as Snow White (reprising her stage role) and Creighton Hale as the Prince. Clark was the second most successful silent film star next to Mary Pickford. Sadly, most of her films are lost. She is terrific in this—expressive without overacting. 6 foot 2 Lionel Braham also shines as the enormous huntsman (with an even more enormous beard) which makes him look rather like Brian Blessed.

Interesting fact number two: According to Wikipedia-- Walt Disney was fifteen years old when he saw it, and it inspired him to make it the subject of his first feature-length animated film . Chronologically, this should be discussed in the next few weeks, but I am going to save the Disney film for last as it is the most famous version and for many of us our gateway Disney film.

So how was the film? It is a full hour in length, so I had to watch it in parts before and after work, but it is a masterstroke. There are many familiar elements such as the jealous stepmother, the magic mirror, the Prince, the dwarfs and a wedding. But how these parts fit together is completely novel. There is much extra detail—some puzzling and some jaw droppingly original. The effects are not that bad for 1916 and the acting is never melodramatic. There are good title cards to help you follow the plot—a few funny enough to make me snort.

Our film begins with Father Christmas coming to deliver a set of dolls which he carefully places on a table while a child sneaks downstairs to watch. After he goes back up the chimney, the dolls transmogrify into the live action characters.

We set the scene with the bit straight out of the Grimms where the mother is sewing and pricks her finger and the red blood drops on the white snow of the ebony window. Here the Queen actively squeezes the blood out forcing it to drop on the snow as if to make a point and one of the ladies in waiting gives a subtle eyeroll which made me chuckle. We also see here one of the ladies in waiting who is quite ugly with a big false nose.She is our antagonist of the film. 

This evil lady goes to a bald witch (with a fearful familiar who is basically someone in an animal onesie) and wants a spell to make her more beautiful than Snow White and to get to marry the King. The bald headed witch gives her a truth telling mirror which magics her beautiful (basically gives her a nose job) and says if the mirror ever breaks, she will go back to her ugly self. The witch also predicts that within a year the good queen will die  and the evil one will be the new queen. But there is one caveat—the witch demands Snow White’s heart.

The prophecy comes true and the evil lady in waiting is now the queen. As in Cinderella, our young heroine is forced to work in the kitchen and not join her group of dancing maids of honour (who I suppose are just the junior version of ladies in waiting.)

The stuffy, pompous big-wigged chamberlain (who acts like he has a stick up his butt both literally and figuratively) does the bidding of the evil queen. I should like to say I do not recall ever seeing her father in all this. Snow White (again, much like Cinderella) is happy and cheerful and everyone loves her, and she doesn’t mind a bit of hard work as she flits around barefoot like a simpleton.

Snow White is tasked with going to the Huntsman’s little cottage and collecting three ducks for lunch. These ducks are clearly on the menu and are not just going to be guests at the table. This fact is important for later. The Huntsman has three adorable little children named Tina, Trina and Tip who wear sort of traditional folk costumes from some unspecified European country. She gently scolds the littles and gets them to release a small brown bird they had in a tiny cage saying “Birds should never be caged. Let them fly free.” I guess ducks don’t count in your assessment of the rights of birds, eh Snow White?

A Prince from a neighbouring kingdom happens by out on a hunt and decides to shoot the tiny brown bird they have just released with his bow and arrow. Luckily, he is a crap shot which gives them time to beg to spare the bird’s life. He agrees not to shoot as he is smitten with the raven haired mystery girl. They flirt shamelessly back at the Huntsman’s cottage and he tries to work out who she is but again like Cinderella in her poor dress and no shoes she shyly (or cunningly, depending on how you see it) deflects and makes him think she is one of the maids of honour. Then she skips away barefoot down the lane with the three poor ducks who are gong to meet their doom as lunch.

There is some sort of party where all the other maids of honour in white want to dance—but our heroine in her shapeless black sack of a dress is forbidden to gavotte by the snooty Chamberlain. She knows the Prince is there. She wants to see him and be seen by him. Each maid of honour gives up a little bit of her clothing so she can blend in with her white gown and veil. “You look like a bride!” they exclaim as a sort of foreshadowing. But what about shoes? She is still prancing around barefoot. They all agree to take off their shoes so she can blend in. They all dance, she catches the Prince’s eye. He is saddened as he has come to deliver a proclamation that he is to marry his cousin Snow White whom he has never seen, and this is quite sad as he is in love with another. Embarrassingly, the evil Queen thinks he is talking about her and his face is so “aw hell naw” it gave me laugh number two. He declares his love for one of the maids of honour but when he picks her out of the line-up and the evil Queen realises that the maid of honour is in fact her stepdaughter Snow White. She declares they can marry in a year and a day, but first Snow White must go to a boarding school for backwards princesses. This made me laugh with a snort.

Obviously, this is the point where Snow White will need to be killed and her heart taken. The witch appears and makes it clear—it must be the heart of a beautiful girl to make her spell work. The evil Queen summons the Huntsman and threatens to lock up his children in the tower and starve them to death if he refuses to comply. So that’s why we met his three adorable kiddies earlier! He reluctantly agrees and takes Snow White out to the forest. That’s the FOREST. (This will be important later.) He tells her what he is tasked with doing and she thinks he is kidding…when it becomes clear it is not a joke (after throwing herself in his big strong arms and batting her eyelashes….I feel this Snow White definitely knows how to use her womanly wiles) he tells her to run and he agrees to find a wild pig to kill instead. Snow White is then menaced by a lion—that’s a LION—who has inexplicably wandered into the forest and then the little brown bird she saved comes along and tells her to follow. She follows the bird to the cottage of the seven dwarfs. She takes a tiny bite off of all their plates and then falls asleep in one of the beds.

We see the dwarfs—who are quite small (I cannot be sure if they hired little actors or perhaps children as their faces are obscured by long white beards. Perhaps it is forced perspective filming as the actress who plays Snow White is quite tiny herself) in a scene that is meant to be in a weirdly lit underground mine but makes them appear like they are a heavy metal rock band on an arena tour. They arrive home and do a helpful roll call to let us know their names are Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick, Whick and inexplicably Quee. They unload some top quality jewels and silver dust they mined at work and then have a comic scene where Quee gives them all a wash by flicking them in the face with a wet towel followed by a dry towel. Quee himself does not wash (this will be important later.) They realise someone has lazily swept the kitchen and eaten some of their food. However, they say like the three bears that someone has eaten their porridge and used a knife to cut some bread—neither of which she actually did.

They find her asleep and a curious exchange occurs. First, they wonder will “it” wake up. Then one of them declares it is a “she” not an “it.” Another claims that “girls can’t talk.” Then a creepy one says, “I wish she’d stay with us just so we could look at her.” Being subtitled it is hard to tell who is the dodgy one, but my bets are on Quee. They decide to bribe her with gifts to stay so lay things of value by her sleeping head. The reject the idea of diamonds as too common and instead leave a jack knife, a thimble and an almanac. Yup, that’s what I said.

Then they decide that Quee really stinks as he hasn’t had a bath in 50 years, so they force him into a barrel of water. She wakes up long enough to say “Sorry I ate your food, and I am really tired so I will tell you my story tomorrow. Goodnight.” Everyone is OK with this and Quee has to sleep in the barrel as she is in his bed.

Then we go back to the Queen ordering the Huntsman to be arrested. I thought it was because she had discovered the heart was not Snow Whites but apparently, she’s just a bitch. We see him imprisoned in the tower and he can see his children in an adjoining cell. He shows off his super strength by bending the iron bars, but he still cannot reach them. Luckily, our plucky little brown bird appears with a comically long piece of string with a little trapeze-y handle at the end like you use on a zip wire. The Huntsman uses this to hoist his kids through the bent bars and then suspends the jailer with the string and steals his keys and they escape.

Meanwhile, the evil Queen bring the heart to the witch who adds it to a watering can and has her furry familiar water her head with it. If this had been the heart of a beautiful girl then she would have a grown a headful of luscious locks, but instead in a very good time lapse effect curly pigs tails grow out of her scalp because it as the heart of a wild pig. Too bad he didn’t kill the unexplained lion—she could have had a head of hair like Tina Turner.

They agree to kill Snow White and the evil Queen is changed into “a different looking person altogether with the means to dispose of Snow White that the dwarfs can’t trace back to [her].” She is given a basket of wares—ribbons and laces which allude to the original Grimms’ story, but most importantly a poisoned comb that must stay in her hair for the count of 100 to kill her. This will be important later.

Snow White being the kind soul she is doesn’t recognise her stepmother (it looks as if it actually played by another actor for once) and lets her in and allows her to put the comb in her hair. Snow White grabs her head like she has a migraine and then stumbles about and finally crashes into the table, falling under the table somehow. The evil Queen begins to count. Here we have the threat of a ticking clock and we only have until 100 until she is dead. Luckily, that little brown bird is on the case. It sees the poison comb, tells a rabbit (as you do) who hops down the mine and tells the dwarfs (of course it does) who rush in at the last minute somewhere in the 90s and remove the comb. Then they all play a game of Blind Man’s Bluff like nothing ever happened.

Next the Queen disguises herself as a one-eyed male pie seller and Snow White eats the poison apple and snuffs it. Meanwhile the Huntsman and the Prince join forces to find Snow White and find her dead body. Here he sees her and loves her because he knows her and not because she is some random dead chick he fancies. He takes her body not to have necrophiliac sex with her but to take it to stepmother as proof of her crimes. They arrive at the palace and the Prince does the mime version of “J’accuse!” since it is a silent film. The journey to the palace knocks the apple loose from Snow White’s windpipe and she sits up alive then drops the piece of already been chewed apple casually on the floor like she has no manners.

The next title card says, "When the Queen broke the magic mirror her evil face showed itself and the witch finally received the hair she wanted.” This was my last laugh of the film. We see the evil Queen horrified that she has the big conk again and she is wearing one of those rolled up cones with a floaty scarf on her head like no real people probably ever wore but you see a lot in fairy tales. The witch now has hair down to her bum and dances gleefully.

There is a wedding and Snow White says that all the dwarfs can stay at the palace with them without asking her husband if he is Ok with that, which doesn’t bode well for the marriage in my opinion.

My verdict: The film is quite long, but is beautifully and artfully shot and well worth watching. You can see it below. Be sure to turn up the sound. There is a faint musical undercurrent…almost discordant in places…that hums along and enhances the story.

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for Betty Boop as Snow White.