Snow White (1916)
63 mins | Fantasy | 25 December 1916
Director:
J. Searle DawleyWriter:
Winthrop AmesProducer:
Daniel FrohmanProduction Company:
Famous Players Film Co.Marguerite Clark, who had starred four years earlier in Winthrop Ames' staging of the Jesse Graham White play, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which opened at New York's Little Theater on 7 November 1912, was given a credit above the title on the first card of the film, but then given fifth place, though in large type, in the performer credits. Ames was credited with the film's story. According to a news item, Ames also made the sketches for and supplied the original costumes from the 1912 play, according to the 2 December 1916 Motion Picture News.
Exteriors were filmed in Georgia, according to reviewer George Blaisdell in the 7 January 1917 Moving Picture World: "Here we have great trees and little trees, 'bearded with moss and in garment green.' The former is of the deep-hanging Spanish variety, picturesque always and a treat to Northern eyes." An item in the 23 December 1916 Moving Picture World reported that director J. Searle Dawley had planned to film in Atlanta, GA, but inclement weather changed his itinerary to Savannah. According to the December 1917 Motion Picture Magazine, Harry Lee assisted Dawley "in arranging the scenes for Snow White near Savannah, Georgia. The forest scenes were the real thing; but the interiors were done in New York." Famous Players' cavernous New York studio was located at 221 West Twenty-sixth Street.
Motion Picture News called Snow White Paramount's first six-reel film. It had been planned as a five-reel film, the 30 December 1916 Moving Picture World noted, but Dawley ended up with so ...
Marguerite Clark, who had starred four years earlier in Winthrop Ames' staging of the Jesse Graham White play, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which opened at New York's Little Theater on 7 November 1912, was given a credit above the title on the first card of the film, but then given fifth place, though in large type, in the performer credits. Ames was credited with the film's story. According to a news item, Ames also made the sketches for and supplied the original costumes from the 1912 play, according to the 2 December 1916 Motion Picture News.
Exteriors were filmed in Georgia, according to reviewer George Blaisdell in the 7 January 1917 Moving Picture World: "Here we have great trees and little trees, 'bearded with moss and in garment green.' The former is of the deep-hanging Spanish variety, picturesque always and a treat to Northern eyes." An item in the 23 December 1916 Moving Picture World reported that director J. Searle Dawley had planned to film in Atlanta, GA, but inclement weather changed his itinerary to Savannah. According to the December 1917 Motion Picture Magazine, Harry Lee assisted Dawley "in arranging the scenes for Snow White near Savannah, Georgia. The forest scenes were the real thing; but the interiors were done in New York." Famous Players' cavernous New York studio was located at 221 West Twenty-sixth Street.
Motion Picture News called Snow White Paramount's first six-reel film. It had been planned as a five-reel film, the 30 December 1916 Moving Picture World noted, but Dawley ended up with so much beautiful footage that he extended the length.
At the same time as this film was in theaters, Educational Films Corp. released an independent Snow White with an all-children cast, and in early 1917 Rex Films released a three-reel Snow White starring Elsie Alberts.
The February 1917 Photoplay ran a photo-illustrated short-story adaptation of the Snow White scenario. Within its cast listing were the names of the actors who played the "seven dwarfs."
Among the many other film versions of the fairy tale are a 1917 Universal three-reeler, a short 1933 Fleischer animated film, and Disney's feature-length 1938 animated film. For information on those and other film adaptations, please consult the entry for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
A 35mm print of Snow White was preserved by the George Eastman Museum. It was digitally screened at a Niles Silent Film Museum mini-festival in Fremont, CA, on 13 July 2019.
Princes Snow White was the daughter of a queen named Imogene, who once pricked her finger and shook it out the window, spilling a drop of blood onto the snow. It looked so beautiful that she wished for a daughter with skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as her embroidering rhony frame. Her wish came true soon enough, and Snow White grows up to be "the fairest in the land." Brangomar, an ugly lady of the court, has always been jealous of Snow White, so when Snow White's mother dies, she inveigles her way, with the aid of Witch Hex who transforms her into a beautiful woman, into the heart of the king and becomes Snow White's stepmother. As the new queen, Brangomar makes the princess work as a scullery maid. Yet, even this indignity is not enough, and when Prince Florimond falls in love with Snow White, Brangomar, herself in love with Florimond, decides to have the princess murdered and so commissions Berthold, the hunter, to do the job. Instead of killing her, however, Berthold takes Snow White to the safety of the forest, and from there she goes to live with seven dwarfs. Later, Brangomar tracks her down and gets her to take a bite from a poisoned apple, but Snow White recovers and marries Florimond, while the witch Hex, who years before had made Brangomar beautiful, but who is now fed up with her, turns the queen into a ...
Princes Snow White was the daughter of a queen named Imogene, who once pricked her finger and shook it out the window, spilling a drop of blood onto the snow. It looked so beautiful that she wished for a daughter with skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as her embroidering rhony frame. Her wish came true soon enough, and Snow White grows up to be "the fairest in the land." Brangomar, an ugly lady of the court, has always been jealous of Snow White, so when Snow White's mother dies, she inveigles her way, with the aid of Witch Hex who transforms her into a beautiful woman, into the heart of the king and becomes Snow White's stepmother. As the new queen, Brangomar makes the princess work as a scullery maid. Yet, even this indignity is not enough, and when Prince Florimond falls in love with Snow White, Brangomar, herself in love with Florimond, decides to have the princess murdered and so commissions Berthold, the hunter, to do the job. Instead of killing her, however, Berthold takes Snow White to the safety of the forest, and from there she goes to live with seven dwarfs. Later, Brangomar tracks her down and gets her to take a bite from a poisoned apple, but Snow White recovers and marries Florimond, while the witch Hex, who years before had made Brangomar beautiful, but who is now fed up with her, turns the queen into a peacock.
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