''Snow White'' is a 1916 American silent

romantic fantasy Romantic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy fiction, describing a fantasy story using many of the elements and conventions of the chivalric romance genre. One of the key features of romantic fantasy involves the focus on relationships, social, ...

film directed by

J. Searle Dawley James Searle Dawley (October 4, 1877 – March 30, 1949) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, stage actor, and playwright. Between 1907 and the mid-1920s, while working for Edison, Rex Motion Picture Company, Famous Player ...

. It was adapted by

Winthrop Ames Winthrop Ames (November 25, 1870 – November 3, 1937) was an American theatre director and producer, playwright and screenwriter. For three decades at the beginning of the 20th century, Ames was an important force on Broadway, whose repertoire i ...

from his own 1912 Broadway play ''

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as Ta ...

'', which was in turn adapted from the 1812 fairy tale (as collected by the

Grimm brothers The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...

). The film stars

Marguerite Clark Helen Marguerite Clark (February 22, 1883 – September 25, 1940) was an American stage and silent film actress. As a movie actress, at one time, Clark was second only to Mary Pickford in popularity. All but five of her films are considered ...

and

Creighton Hale Creighton Hale (born Patrick Fitzgerald; May 24, 1882 – August 9, 1965) was an Irish-American theatre, film, and television actor whose career extended more than a half-century, from the early 1900s to the end of the 1950s. Career Born in Cou ...

, Clark reprising her stage role. Fifteen years old when he saw it,

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

was inspired to make it the subject of his first feature-length animated film in 1937.

Cast

as Snow White *

as Prince Florimond *

Dorothy Cumming Dorothy Greville Cumming (12 April 1894 – 10 December 1983) was an actress of the silent film era. She appeared in 39 American, English, and Australian films between 1915 and 1929, notably appearing as the Virgin Mary in Cecil B. DeMille' ...

as Queen Brangomar *

Lionel Braham Lionel Braham (April 1, 1879 – October 6, 1947) was a British actor. He appeared in the films ''Snow White'', '' Young Lochinvar'', ''I'll Show You the Town'', '' Skinner's Dress Suit'', ''Don Juan'', '' As You Like It'', '' Personal Property' ...

as Berthold the Huntsman * Alice Washburn as Witch Hex (*see below) *

Richard Barthelmess Richard Semler Barthelmess (May 9, 1895 – August 17, 1963) was an American film actor, principally of the Hollywood silent era. He starred opposite Lillian Gish in D. W. Griffith's '' Broken Blossoms'' (1919) and ''Way Down East'' (1920) and ...

as Pie Man *Arthur Donaldson as King *Irwin Emmer as

Dwarf Dwarf or dwarves may refer to: Common uses *Dwarf (folklore), a being from Germanic mythology and folklore * Dwarf, a person or animal with dwarfism Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Dwarf (''Dungeons & Dragons''), a humanoid ...

*Billy Platt as Dwarf *Herbert Rice as Dwarf *Jimmy Rosen as Dwarf ''uncredited'' *

May Robson Mary Jeanette Robison (19 April 1858 – 20 October 1942), known professionally as May Robson, was an Australian-born American-based actress whose career spanned 58 years, starting in 1883 when she was 25. A major stage actress of the late 19t ...

as Witch Hex (she replaced originally scheduled Alice Washburn) *

Kate Lester Kate Lester (born Sarah Cody, 12 June 1857 – 12 October 1924) was an American theatrical and silent film actress. Her family, the Suydams of New York, were staying in Britain at the time of her birth.Who Was Who on Screen 3rd edition page ...

as a dowager queen

Preservation status

Formerly thought to have been destroyed in a vault fire and presumed

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

, a "substantially complete" print with Dutch intertitles, missing a few scenes, was found in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

in 1992 and restored at

George Eastman House The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

Home media

''Snow White'' is included in the boxed DVD set '' Treasures from American Film Archives: 50 Preserved Films'' (2000).

References

External links

* * * 1916 films 1910s romantic fantasy films American black-and-white films American films based on plays American romantic fantasy films American silent feature films Articles containing video clips Famous Players-Lasky films Films about royalty Films based on Snow White Films directed by J. Searle Dawley Paramount Pictures films 1910s rediscovered films Rediscovered American films Santa Claus in film 1910s American films Silent horror films {{1910s-US-film-stub

Cast

Preservation status

Home media

See also

References

External links