Whistle While You Read These Facts About Snow White

"Snow White" no longer seems as revolutionary as it did in 1937, now that later films have taken its innovations for granted and frequently left them in the dust. But the movie still has some advantages over its more sophisticated successors, especially in its textures, which somehow approach photorealism while retaining a painterly, storybook quality. Most animated movies since then have used simple, flat colors, but "Snow White" embraces the full spectrum with its beautiful watercolors.

Even that medium wasn't subtle enough for all the effects the animators wanted, and Christopher Finch quotes animator Frank Thomas on his woes with Snow White's complexion. Her "skin white as snow" came back from the ink and paint department looking sickly pale, and every attempt to put a little healthy color in her cheeks "made her look like a clown." Finally, an anonymous ink-and-paint girl suggested that instead of trying to simulate it, they just paint rouge straight on the celluloid. When Walt didn't understand what she meant, she pulled out her makeup kit and demonstrated then and there.

The producer still had some reservations, though: "Walt said, 'Yeah, but how the hell are you going to get it in the same place every day? And on each drawing?' And the girl said, 'What do you think we've been doing all our lives?'"