
Snow White paved the way for Walt Disney to establish the studio as a leading producer of
full-length motion pictures and an integral part of Hollywood movie-making. Most people
felt that Snow White was a risky gamble; the Disney Studios were known for Mickey
Mouse and animated shorts, not full-length features. But Walt risked it all, and persisted.
Here, he talks about the heady and sometimes anxious days of producing "Snow White",
and the growth of the studio that followed.
Just ask Walt a question:
... then click on the audio button to hear Walt's voice!
What made you decide to make "Snow White"?
"I don't know why I picked 'Snow White.' It's a thing I remembered as a kid. I saw
Marguerite Clark in it in Kansas City one time when I was a newsboy. They had a big
showing for all the newsboys. And I went and saw 'Snow White.' It was probably one of
my first big feature pictures I'd ever seen. That was back in 1917 or 18 or 16. Somewhere
way back. But anyways, to me I thought it was a perfect story. I had the sympathetic
dwarfs and things. I had the heavy. I had the prince and the girl. The romance. I just
thought it was a perfect story."
What happened when "Snow White" was released for the first time?
"We had a big premiere at the Carthay Circle Theater. Big grand Hollywood premiere. It
was quite a climax to something, you know, because it went way back -- all of Hollywood
brass turned out for a cartoon. It went way back to when I first came out here and I went to
the first premiere. And I went down and I saw all these Hollywood celebrities coming in
and I just had a funny feeling there. Just said maybe some day they'll be going into a
premiere of a cartoon. Because people would depreciate the cartoon. I met a guy on the
train when I was coming out ... and making conversation with people 'Going to
California?' 'Yeah, I'm goin' out there.' And uh, 'What business you in?' And I said 'The
motion picture business.' 'Oh, is that right? Well I know somebody in the picture
business. What do you do?' I said 'I make animated cartoons.' 'Oh.' It was like saying 'I
sweep up the latrines,' or something, You know? But it was an exciting thing to have that
premiere and the darn thing went out and grossed eight million dollars around the world."
Looking back, how do you feel about "Snow White"?
"For years afterwards, I hated Snow White because everytime I'd make a feature after that,
they'd always compare it with Snow White and I actually got around to the point I hated
'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'. . .The second one I made following Snow White
was Pinocchio. It was a big disappointment to a lot of people. As a lot of them said 'No
dwarfs.' Well, time had to play its part. Pinocchio has become a perennial. Pinocchio has
been reissued and gone out and it is an entirely different kind of story, you see?"
After Pinocchio came Fantasia. What was it like, working with Leopold Stokowski?
"We'd come to a big burst of a big crescendo. And I said 'To me that's like coming out of a
dark tunnel and a big splash of light coming in on you,' you know? And we'd argue about
it. And I'd say, 'I see it as kind of an orange. Stokowski who was sitting with us he said
'Oh, no. I see that as purple.' Funny, just the opposite."
When 'Fantasia' was not well received by the public, what did you do next?
"I put 'Dumbo' together and I just started with a little idea. And I just kept expanding it. First, I was going to make it as about a thirty minute subject. But as I got developing and
we got little new things in there, I kept expanding and before I knew it, I had a sixty two
minute picture that cost seven hundred thousand dollars. And when it reached that point I
said 'That's as far as I can stretch it.' They said, 'Can't you add another ten minutes to it,
Walt?' And I said 'No. That other ten minutes is liable to cost another half million dollars.'
You can stretch a thing so far and then it just won't hold. So I said 'No. That's the
length.'"
And then, of course, came the day that changed everything, didn't it?
"That was the day war was declared. Sunday. I was at home and we got the word that
they'd bombed Pearl Harbor. Shortly after that I got a call from the studio manager and he
had been called, in turn, by the police. He said: 'Walt. The army is moving in on us.' And
'They came up and said they wanted to move in.' And I said 'I'd have to call you.' And
they said 'Call him but we're moving in anyway.' So five hundred troops moved in the
studio."
The studio switched from animated features to propaganda films. How did that affect the
bottom line?
"We passed a resolution when the war started that any work that we would do for the war
effort would be done at cost. There'd be no element of profit. That went on the books and
was passed by the Board of Directors unanimously. So we tried to set it up that way with
the government. But the government could not understand it."
What did these changes mean to you personally?
"I became all confused. I didn't know where I was. I had a big staff. I hated to lay off
anybody. I tried to hold on to 'em. I tried different ways. The war was not here yet. But
they were still drafting. Some of my boys had to go. It was a terrible period. . . I just
became so darned confused that I didn't know what the heck I was doing. And I should
have just had a big layoff."
Next update: How Walt and the studio recovered from the war years ... and went on to its
greatest triumphs yet.
|