DVD Review

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (2001)

EW's GRADE
A-

Details Rated: G; DVD Release Date: Oct 09, 2001; Genres: Animation, Fantasy; With: Adriana Caselotti, Lucille La Verne and Harry Stockwell; Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures Inc.

Golly gosh a'mighty, it's awful hard not to roll your eyes a little when you hear the falsetto-high, borderline- baby-talk voice of Disney's trailblazing cartoon-feature heroine, done by an 18-year-old Adrianna Caselotti. What seemed hip in the heyday of Jeanette MacDonald just seems cloying now. But that said, nothing else about the picture feels dated. In fact, the makeover Disney has given these hand-drawn images sets a thoroughly modern digital-restoration benchmark. There are no more pesky dust specks (which got trapped between cels and backgrounds in the original photography), no flickers, no jitters. The resulting images pop like you're holding original artwork, and the dwarfs' getups have a color-coded finesse they probably never had in any movie print. There's no mistaking, say, Sneezy for Doc or Bashful or Dopey or Happy.

Originally posted Oct 05, 2001 Published in issue #618-619 Oct 05, 2001 Order article reprints

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