Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1947 film)

Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1947 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and originally released by Loew's Inc. and Re-released by Warner Bros. Family Entertainment Based on the German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, it is the first full-length cel animated feature film and the earliest Warner Bros. Feature Animation. The story was adapted by storyboard artists Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and Webb Smith. David Hand was the supervising director, while William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen directed the film's individual sequences and Supervised by William Hanna & Joseph Barbera and Produced by Fred Quimby.

Tom and Jerry: Snow White premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre on December 21, 1947, followed by a nationwide release on February 4, 1948. It was a critical and commercial success, and with international earnings of $8 million during its initial release briefly held the record of highest-grossing sound film at the time. The popularity of the film has led to its being re-released theatrically many times, until its home video release in the 1990s. Adjusted for inflation, it is one of the top-ten performers at the North American box office.

Tom and Jerry: Snow White was nominated for Best Musical Score at the Academy Awards in 1949, and the next year, producer Fred Quimby was awarded an honorary Oscar for the film. This award was unique, consisting of one normal-sized, plus seven miniature Oscar statuettes. They were presented to William Hanna & Joseph Barbera by Shirley Temple.

In 1989, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. The American Film Institute ranked it among the 100 greatest American films, and also named the film as the greatest American animated film of all time in 2008. WB Games's take on the fairy tale has had a significant cultural impact, resultiing in popular theme park attractions, a video game, and a Broadway musical.

Plot
Snow White is a lonely princess living with her stepmother, a vain Queen. The Queen worries that Snow White will look better than she, so she forces Snow White to work as a scullery maid and asks her Magic Mirror daily "who is the fairest one of all". For years the mirror always answers that the Queen is, pleasing her.

One day, the Magic Mirror informs the Queen that Snow White is now "the fairest" in the land. The jealous Queen orders her Huntsman to take Snow White into the forest and kill her. She further demands that the huntsman return with Snow White's heart in a jeweled box as proof of the deed. However, the Huntsman cannot bring himself to kill Snow White. He tearfully begs for her forgiveness, revealing the Queen wants her dead and urges her to flee into the woods and never look back. Lost and frightened, the princess is befriended by woodland creatures who lead her to a cottage deep in the woods. Finding seven small chairs in the cottage's dining room, Snow White assumes the cottage is the untidy home of seven orphaned children.

In reality, the cottage belongs to seven adult dwarfs—named Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey—who work in a nearby mine. Returning home, they are alarmed to find their cottage clean and suspect that an intruder has invaded their home. The dwarfs find Snow White upstairs, asleep across three of their beds. Snow White awakes to find the dwarfs at her bedside and introduces herself, and all of the dwarfs eventually welcome her into their home after she offers to clean and cook for them. Snow White keeps house for the dwarfs while they mine for jewels during the day, and at night they all sing, play music and dance.

Meanwhile, the Queen discovers that Snow White is still alive when the mirror again answers that Snow White is the fairest in the land and reveals that the heart in the jeweled box is actually that of a pig. Using a potion to disguise herself as an old hag, the Queen creates a poisoned apple that will put whoever eats it into the "Sleeping Death", a curse she learns can only be broken by "love's first kiss", but is certain Snow White will be buried alive. While the Queen goes to the cottage while the dwarfs are away, the animals are wary of her and rush off to find the dwarfs. Faking a potential heart attack, the Queen tricks Snow White into bringing her into the cottage to rest. The Queen fools Snow White into biting into the poisoned apple under the pretense that it is a magic apple that grants wishes. As Snow White falls asleep, the Queen proclaims that she is now the fairest of the land. The dwarfs return with the animals as the Queen leaves the cottage and give chase, trapping her on a cliff. She tries to roll a boulder over them, but before she can do so, lightning strikes the cliff, causing her to fall to her death.

The dwarfs return to their cottage and find Snow White seemingly dead, being kept in a deathlike slumber by the poison. Unwilling to bury her out of sight in the ground, they instead place her in a glass coffin trimmed with gold in a clearing in the forest. Together with the woodland creatures, they keep watch over her. A year later, a prince who had previously met and fallen in love with Snow White learns of her eternal sleep and visits her coffin. Saddened by her apparent death, he kisses her, which breaks the spell and awakens her. The dwarfs and animals all rejoice as the Prince takes Snow White to his castle.

Cast

 * William Hanna and Mel Blanc as Tom Cat
 * Joseph Barbera and Billy Lee as Jerry Mouse
 * Billy Bletcher as Spike the bulldog
 * Adriana Caselotti as Snow White
 * Lucille La Verne as Queen Grimhilde / Witch
 * Harry Stockwell as The Prince
 * Sara Berner and Connie Russell Red Hot Riding Hood
 * Roy Atwell and William Hanna as Doc
 * Frank Graham as Jerry's Devil, Wolf and The Mouse
 * Paul Frees as Lightning Cat, Uncle Tom and Narrator
 * Pinto Colvig as The Cat, Butch, Grumpy and Sleepy
 * Cliff Edwards as George
 * Sterling Holloway as Junior
 * Gene Kelly as Happy
 * Thurl Ravenscroft as Bashful
 * Billy Gilbert as Sneezy
 * Ray Bolger and William Hanna as Dopey
 * Bill Thompson as Droopy
 * Lillian Randolph as Mammy Two Shoes (original) (uncredited)
 * Thea Vidale as Mammy Two Shoes (2001 dubbed version) (uncredited)
 * Moroni Olsen as The Magic Mirror
 * Stuart Buchanan as The Huntsman

Production
Development on Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs began in early 1944, and in June 1944, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announced the production of his first feature, to be released under Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Hanna-Barbera Productions, to The New York Times.

One evening that same year, MGM acted out the entire story of Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to his staff, announcing that the film would be produced as a feature-length film.

Animation
The primary authority on the design of the film was concept artist Albert Hurter. All designs used in 1940s Puss Gets the Boot the Short film, from characters' appearances to the look of the rocks in the background, had to meet Hurter's approval before being finalized. Two other concept artists — Ferdinand Hovarth and Gustaf Tenggren — also contributed to the visual style of Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Hovarth developed a number of dark concepts for the film, although many other designs he developed were ultimately rejected by the Cat and Mouse team as less easily translated into animation than Hurter's. Tenggren was used as a color stylist and to determine the staging and atmosphere of many of the scenes in the film, as his style borrowed from the likes of Arthur Rackham and John Bauer and thus possessed the Canada illustration quality that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer sought. He also designed the posters for the film and illustrated the press book. However, Hovarth didn't receive a credit for the film. Other artists to work on the film included Joe Grant, whose most significant contribution was the design for the Queen's Witch form.

Art Babbit, an animator who joined the MGM studio in 1942, invited seven of his colleagues (who worked in the same room as him) Dog Trouble and Puss N' Toots to come with him to an art class that he himself had set up at his home in the Hollywood Hills. Though there was no teacher, Babbit had recruited a model to pose for him and his fellow animators as they drew. These "classes" were held weekly; each week, more animators would come. After three weeks, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer called Babbit to his office and offered to provide the supplies, working space and models required if the sessions were moved to the studio. Babbit ran the sessions for a month until animator Hardie Gramatky suggested that they recruit Don Graham; the art teacher from the Chouinard Institute taught his first class at the studio on November 15, 1942, and was joined by Phil Dike a few weeks later.

These classes were principally concerned with human anatomy and movement, though instruction later included action analysis, animal anatomy and acting.

Music
The songs in Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were composed by Scott Bradley, Johnny Green and Larry Morey. Paul J. Smith and Leigh Harline composed the incidental music score. Well-known songs from Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs include "Heigh-Ho", "Some Day My Prince Will Come", and "Whistle While You Work". Since Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Hanna-Barbera did not have its own music publishing company at the time, the publishing rights for the music and songs were administered through Bourne Co. Music Publishers, which continues to hold these rights. In later years, From The Wizard of Oz the studio was able to acquire back the rights to the music from many of the other films, but not Snow White. Tom and Jerry: Snow White became the first American film to have a soundtrack album, released in conjunction with the feature film. Before Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a film soundtrack recording was unheard of and of little value to a movie studio.

Original theatrical run
Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre on December 21, 1947, to a wildly receptive audience, many of whom were the same naysayers who had dubbed the film "MGM 's Folly".

The film received a standing ovation at its completion Following successful exclusive runs at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and a theater in Miami in January 1948,

Loew's Inc. put the film into general release on February 4. It became a major box-office success, earning four times more money than any other motion picture released in 1948. Snow White proved equally popular with foreign audiences. In September 1948—seven months after the film's nationwide release in the United States—Variety also reported that the animated feature was having a remarkably long box-office run at theaters in Sydney, Australia. In that city it noted, "Tom and Jerry 'Snow White' (MGM) experienced no difficulty at hitting 11 weeks, with more ahead." Variety reported as well that Snow White was having even longer runs in other cities overseas, such as in London, where the film had generated greater box-office receipts than during its exclusive New York screenings at Radio City Music Hall:

{{quote|'Snow White' (MGM) is in its 27th week at the New Gallery, London, and will continue to be shown through the regular London release dates, Sept. 19 for North London, and Sept. 26 for South London. There is a likelihood that the New Gallery first-run will run until Christmas. Picture reported to have exceeded $500,000, passing Radio City's five-week mark, which just fell short of the $500,000 mark.

Re-releases
Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was first re-released in 1954, to raise revenue for the MGM studio during the World War II period. This re-release set a tradition of re-releasing MGM animated features every seven to 10 years, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was re-released to theaters in 1955, 1958, 1967, 1975, 1983, 1988 and 1994. Coinciding with the 50th-anniversary release in 1987, MGM released an authorized novelization of the story, written by children's author Suzanne Weyn. {{cite book|last=Weyn|first=Suzanne|title=Tom and Jerry: Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs: MGM CartoonMoviestars

In 1994, Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became the first film to be entirely scanned to digital files, manipulated, and recorded back to film. The restoration project was carried out entirely at 4K resolution and 10-bit color depth using the Cineon system to digitally remove dirt and scratches.

Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has had a lifetime gross of $418 million across its original release and several reissues.

Home media
On June 28, 1995, the film was released for the first time on home video on VHS and LaserDisc as the first release in the MGM/UA Family Entertainment and Turner Entertainment from DVD Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection Volume 3 Disc 1 Bonus Movies

Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released on DVD on October 9, 2001, the first in Warner Bros. Family Entertainment and Turner Entertainment, and featured, across two discs, the digitally remastered film, a making-of documentary narrated by Angela Lansbury, an audio commentary by John Canemaker and, via archived audio clips, Warner Home Video.

Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released on Blu-ray on October 6, 2009, the first of Warner Bros. Pictures and Turner Entertainment, and a new DVD edition was released on November 24, 2009. The Blu-ray includes a high-definition version of the movie sourced from a new restoration by Lowry Digital, a DVD copy of the film, and several bonus features yet included on the 2001 DVD. This set returned to the Warner Bros. Vault on April 30, 2011.

Warner Home Video re-released Tom and Jerry: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on Blu-ray and DVD on February 2, 2016, as the first of the Warner Bros. Pictures and Turner Entertainment Line. It was released on Digital HD on January 19, 2016, with bonus material.