Snow White in France. Chapter 9: 2009 - 2014

On September 16, 2006, The exhibit "Once upon a time Walt Disney : the Disney studios artistic sources" opens at the Grand Palais in Paris. Vintage documents are on display, as well as pieces of art used in the making of the films. Its enormous success is proff of the high esteem in which movie goers hold this producer and the films he made. The obvious choice for the poster is an image of Snow White over the well, an original cel one can see in the exhibit among other wonders. This picture will be reproduced on the catalog and on the DVD sold in the museum shop, which contained a film by Samuel Doux which aired on the eve of the opening on the French/German TV channel Arte with many film extracts compared to the works of art that inspired them. The DVD's special feature is the 1916 movie Snow White by J. Searle Dawley starring Marguerite Clark in the title role which influenced Disney in the choice of his first feature. The exhibit closes on January 15, 2007 and is then moved to Canada. For the occasion, Télérama magazine brings out a special number retailing 7.90 euros, "Disney at the Grand Palais, the European influences" with articles and pictures of the artwork.

Technologies change and get better in this XXIst century. As usual, Disney movies give the needed boost to launch any new format. On November 26, 2008, thee Sleeping Beauty Blu-ray comes out in France. An excellent first choice for an HD movie collection: the film was shot in Technirama 70, a much larger film than the classic 35mm format. There are more details in the frame and the new restoration made it spotless, reducing any fault to zero. On March 11, 2009, Pinocchio gets the same treatment.

Of course, the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will soon follow in "the diamond collection". On Octobre 7, 2009, the masterpiece comes out in an edition loaded with surprises. In fact, since the last DVD edition had been the object of an intensive restoration, the third one in less than 15 years, one could have assumed that the same master would be used here, as its qualities had been praised by veteran animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. Yet it is a new effort, entrusted with Lowry Digital Images that is presented here.

The Lowry scanner

Lowry has already made numerous prestigious restorations, documented in the special features of the associated Blu-ray discs, especially the James Bond franchise and masterpieces like Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, thanks to a proprietary software. Their work is impressive and offers a youth to many of them, that were never presented to the public with this quality, including during initial release. Digital technologies allow them to offer a stability, color and cleanliness unmatched until then. Grain is also standardized over the entire feature so that the shots with more grain (typically process shots, titles, etc.) and those right from the camera negative do not display too jarring a difference. In the case of cartoons, the goal is even to remove the grain completely so as to give the impression that you are looking at the original cels and backgrounds.

For Snow White, the team apparently went back to the original internegative and made a 4K scan of it at the rate of 4 seconds per frame. The restoration teams worked from that capture.

Thus, there is a richness of details on the Blu-ray that was not available in previous video formats. The image was also changed slightly: first, the entire film has a more rosy tint that on the DVD, probably in an attempt to get closer to Technicolor 35mm film. Also, the original 1937 main titles and end title used to be in the special features with a commentary explaining that it had been replaced in 1958 to remove the RKO logo.This sequence was restored to the main picture but the 1958 version has vanished, even from the special features.

Andreas Deja introducing a Silly Symphony

Since the film is presented in its original format, black bars appear on the side of any wide-screen TV. To fill the void, the Blu-ray copied an idea used on Pinocchio first called DisneyView: it is replaced by drawings. These are watercolors in the spirit of the film, and they change as the story progresses.

Unfortunately, the French main and end titles that appeared when the French track was selected on the DVD, even on the US edition, have disappeared: even on the French Blu-ray edition, the American titles are offered, as the French ones were probably not concerned with Lowry's restoration. Technology would have made it possible though: on the Blu-rays of The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast, there are several video tracks to present the various versions of the films with or without the added scenes.
Instead, a voice over narration by Philippe Catoire is mixed with the music to translat the book and other English scriptures. The rest of the soundtrack is the third French version recorded in 2001 for the DVD release,only this time, it is mixed in 7.1 DTS-HD (the American version is even DTS-HAD Master Audio).

Deleted scene

Surprisingly there are also several minor changes in the soundtrack: when Dopey walks up the steps candle in hand, a music "mickey mouses" his steps, these few notes were not in the previous versions of the film.
Another musical element has been added: when Snow White first sees the cottage, the last note of the melody heard when she walks through the woods is now part of the mix, right before she says: "How adorable!". This last note was previously missing as it was the moment the projectionist had to change reels. The complete recording was already available since 1957 on the American original soundtrack.

Ron Clements inserted in a vintage photo

Blu-ray back cover

Along with the film, new special features were made: a new animation of the mirror was created for the menu of disc 1, and for disc 2, we travel through old photos of the old Disney Hyperion studio where the current Disney staff suddenly takes life and introduces each feature:
- a game named "Les joyaux éternels".
-storyboards of a short called "Snow White Returns" which was supposed to be sequel where the deleted scenes of the feature could be used. It never went beyond that stage.
- a music video of "Some Day My Prince Will Come" by Tiffany Thornton, from Hannah Montana.
- a clip of the next Disney feature: The Princess and the Frog.
- several documentaries on the Hyperion studio, on character voices, on Disney through the decades, on Walt Disney himself , on rotoscope, on music, etc....

Présentation dynamique d'une réunion sur la scène de la forêt

- the short "The Goddess of Spring" in HD.
- the short "Music land" en HD.
- the short "Playful Pluto" in HD.
- the short "The Old Mill" in HD.
- the short "Babes in the Woods" in HD.
- the short "Steamboat Willie" in HD.
- the short "The Skeleton Dance" in HD.
- Several sequences where Don Hahn explains how drawings or tools were used to develop a sequence.
Some other features are taken more or less directly from the DVD:
- the audio commentary composed of interviews of Walt Disney and other people.
- another game: "le chariot fou de Simplet".
- a documentary on the film.
- the Heigh-Ho karaoke sequence (this time in HD and with the third French version).

The capacity offered by two Blu-ray discs and a DVD being enormous compared to previous formats, this list goes on. Yet some previously available features were dropped. A deleted scene comes to mind where the had mixes her poison with a bone. It was in full color on the DVD, and on the American Laserdisc in the color and pencil version.

As mentioned earlier, the Blu-ray case, held in a 3D cardboard slipcover contains a Blu-ray of the film and of the main special features, a Blu-ray disc dedicated to the rest of the special features and a DVD of the film for those not yet equipped with a Blu-ray player. For those who want to keep a DVD collection on their shelves, the same discs are available in DVD box edition. A "prestige" edition is also available with a 160 page artbook. By connecting to disney.fr or disneybluraydvd.fr, shoppers can register their Disney studios privilèges points thanks to a code found inside the box.

This selling point is advertised on the many ads made for the release: other than the posters with the same drawing as on the Blu-ray, we find our favorite characters on cardboards ads in stores that sell the Blu-ray. The dwarfs are mounted on a pedestal with the new title logo under wich is written: "for the first time in high definition Disney Blu-ray and on DVD".
A new trailer is broadcast on every available medium, and on the Disney.fr youtube channel.

More than ever, children and collectors can find the universe of the tale in an ever growing variety of books. First, Pierre Lambert's beautiful art book published by Démons et Merveilles is offered a new edition in October of 2009 by La Martinière in a new somewhat simplified, but much cheaper version (38 euros).
Even though some books are not made in France, some do find their way in French stores.
Since 2010, The Archive Series publishes beautiful reproductions of Disney art in several volumes. In the one called "Design", for instance, the beautiful production drawings from decades of films are reproduced. For Snow White, drawings by Ferdinand Horvath and Maurice Noble grace a few pages.

Serena Valentino wrote a novel with the Wicked Queen as a heroin: "Fairest of All" that has since been translated.
In 2012, Eric Smoodin releases an excellent little book dedicated to the film at BFI film classics in the UK.

The book-record concept is still popular and is offered in several editions. On December 13, 2012 Marianne Mélodie releases a very interesting CD, Vive les chansons de notre enfance, with Walt Disney songs mastered from old 78 rpm records. In it are the songs of Elyane Célis, Lucienne Dugard, Paulette Rollin, etc.
And the National French Library collection also digitizes its collection with recordings by Caravelli, Paulette Rollin, the story of Snow White Elyane Célis, by Dany Robin, etc.

This prestige release has an end and the sale of Blu-rays is stopped on April 30, 2011.

Snow White seems to get trendy as more and more adaptations see the light nowadays: a typically French crazy animated version by Picha in 2007: Snow White: The Sequel where the Princess is clearly inspired by Disney (puffy sleeves, bow in her hair, etc.) but the resemblance ends here: the film is a farce for adults as only Picha can make it. It should be said that Jean-Claude Donda also voices the dwarfs here.
Still in animation, there is karate version of the Princess in Shrek the Third whose French voice is none other than Rachel Pignot's!
In 2009, comes a German TV adaptation directed by Thomas Freudner, and a ballet filmed by Angelin Preljocaj with music by Mahler and costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier.

2012 is a particularly prolific year for Snow White adaptations with a TV movie by Rachel Goldenberg starring Jane March as the Queen, then Mirror Mirror starring Julia Roberts in that same role and Snow White and the Huntsman this time with Charlize Theron, a much darker film with a 2016 sequel: The Huntsman from which Snow White is absent.

That same year but in a very different style was released Pablo Berger's Blancanieves.

We established that the usual theater release cycle of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was replaced by a video release (often on a new format) since 1994 and the first VHS release. Those who predicted the death of the film and the ensuing profits were wrong. However, it is true that it is getting more and more difficult to enjoy the film as it was meant to be: in a theater.

Yet, unlike what you may think considering how little publicity it spurs, it is still possible.
The film comes out in France on Wednesday April 30, 2014 and stays there until Sunday May 18, in all Gaumont Pathé theaters across the country as part of the operation "Printemps de Princesses" (Spring of Princesses). It is preceded by the release of The Little Mermaid and followed by that of Cinderella.

There are other screenings at special events: on September 21, Philippe Conticini associates his "pâtisserie des rêves" and the Publicis drugstore for a screening of the film as the first of the "ciné gourmand Disney" season very near the place where it actually premiered, on the Champs Élysées. Spectators are handed a "box gourmande" with cakes in it.

The French cinémathèque in spite of the neglect its current director has towards Disney films, has programmed it on May 15, 2013 as part of its "Jacques Demy and the enchanted cinema" cycle, and on May 10, 2014 as a "classic of cinema". It was a DCP copy, with the third French dubbing, similar to what is found on the Blu-ray. Even though it was clearly aimed at a young audience (it was an afternoon show), the room was full and the audience excited.
To inaugurate the Disney Héritage operation, Walt Disney films were screen at the Grand Rex in Paris and Snow White opened the ball at 11 am on January 12, 2013. The event is then reproduced everywhere in France and still endures.

Store ad

On December 10, 2014, the film comes out again on video, this time on the same format than before: on Blu-ray. Once again, new ads announce the film: the new poster uses the same elements than the ones from 2009 but rearranges them differently:  the drawing of the Princess is now in front of a giant apple in which reflections of the Prince and the dwarfs can be seen. On the back of the cardboard ads, Pixar DVDs are advertised, as well as other digital Disney productions, among which the now famous Frozen.
In fact, this last feature has become a phenomenon which gives the occasion for articles to remind the world that Snow White is still the cartoon most seen in a theater, leaving Frozen far behind in that field, although it is no longer the most profitable.

Unlike what was done before, this Blu-ray release of Snow White is not announced as a limited offer, and seems to be designed for children or Disney collectors who want to complete a Blu-ray collection on the same mold. Each film has indeed been released in a less prestigious format, without slipcover, and with the same blue framing on the cover. There are also editions with several titles in the same box. The crowned jewel of the company has lost in prestige what it has gained in visibility.

French store

The films has now become permanently available: the old strategy of making the film unavailable has become senseless: the old tapes and discs are all available on second hand websites and if the company decided not to sell the film anymore, fans could still buy it and the profits would escape the Disney company, not to mention that it would encourage piracy. The planned obsolescence of all formats may be considered fast, but it still isn't fast enough to stop this phenomenon.
Films are now dematerialized anyway. Collectors who buy the object as well as the film are getting rare. The market is dominated by a generation of children who are used to getting what they want 5 minutes after they expressed the wish to have it and by parents just as impatient to sit their kids in front of a screen which will offer the required cartoon without having to look for it too long.
The film is now available on Youtube, Itunes, Amazon, and other platforms. A good connection is all it takes and it is no longer necessary to get out and buy a film on any format.

The market of tied-in products is going quite well too. And fans now speak more easily on the internet or in books.
In 2014, new books are published: of the two written by J.B. Kaufman in 2011 in the United States, it is the most picture-oriented that comes out in France, translated by Philippe Touboul. its actually a catalog of the Snow White exhibit at the Walt Disney Museum in San Francisco when it opened. Unfortunately there is no translation of the other book, which is richer in never before published information.

French books came out too with deep analysis of the film. First in the first volume of his "History of the French cartoon between 1936 and 1940", Sébastien Roffat has gathered an impressive sum of knowledge about the release of Snow White in France and Europe, which is incredible considering his subject, as the title subjects, is much more global.
Karl Derisson, member of the website Chronique Disney, offers to tell "the creation of Walt Disney's masterpiece" through 15 chapters from the "origins" to the theme park rides with a detailed analysis of the characters.
These two books, published by L'Harmattan both talk about alostfilm.com: it's only fair that I return the favor here.
Still by L'Harmattan, invited by Sébastien Roffat, my friend Rémi Carémel and I have modestly brought our contribution to a seminar with a short essai about Blanche Neige and its first French version which was reproduced in this book.

Snow White is the character most prominently displayed on the poster of: Les grands contes de fée, Disney Live which took place from February 14, to March 2, 2014 at the Grand Rex and which toured France from March 5, till April 13. In the same spirit, From the 10 to the 21 of December 2014 at the Zénith de Paris, she is part of the "Disney on Ice show, 100 years of Magic" which tours from November 28, 2014 to February 4, 2015.
A video game called The Queen's Return comes out October 2013 in which the dwarfs must break the spell that the Queen threw on the forest. The game lasts until November 2014.

Even with the 2014 theater release, it is obvious that many events, videos or other products are not directly inspired by the film but by a marketing strategy that gathers the Disney Princesses for various films under the same banner. To achieve that, they had to smoothen the specificity of their designs, which unlike what some say, is quite different from one another, so they may coexist in a universe created for little girls. Each of them was digitally redesigned and modernize so as to look closer to the characters from current productions. Glittering dresses, flashy colors, smooth faces, remodeled hairdos (Cinderella is particularly unlike herself) are the ingredients of this profound change.

Snow White now wears a glittering dress and her famous bow has tilted to the side of her hair, when it has not simply been replaced by a tiara.
This image coexist with more traditional versions on many products, sometimes classic, sometimes quite original: dolls, figurines, pens, playing cards, candies, candles, cake toppers, watches, etc.

But the original drawings still have their amateurs: as an echo of the Grand Palais exhibit, the Arludik gallery located on the island of St Louis in Paris has organized free exhibits of production drawings and celluloids, first of Disney Princesses on December 3, 2013, then of Disney villains from April 7, 2015. Not only can you see Snow White artwork, you can also buy it!

detail of a cel at Arludik

In the future, one can hope that Walt Disney's masterpiece will benefit from new technologies like UHD, but there are high expectations of fans regarding the content of the future releases. Walt Disney had conceived his film with particular care regarding the foreign adaptations which were made so that the viewer could imagine that the story was happening in his own country. There are still many comments on amazon from people of all generations and different backgrounds who look for the version of their childhood, whatever it is. Without the fans, some versions or specific documents related with foreign versions would fall in a dangerous oblivion: this website and others are here to remind that the first enemy of a film is to be forgotten. Not to show it is to condemn it to a certain death on a more or less short term. For a film that is so easily available throughout the entire world so long after its initial release and whose appeal is in great part due to nostalgia, it is ironic that the first two French dubbings are not offered on formats that lend themselves extremely well to multiple video and audio tracks.

This is a prayer for future editions to preserve this treasures while it is still time. If Snow White remains the fairest one of all, we saw that several restorations were needed for that fact to remain. It is sad to see that the American film receives so much care while the first French version is preserved only on a handful of very rare film copies, most of them made of volatile nitrate which is due to destruction soon.

Cover of an old program of Blanche Neige et les sept nains

Other documents need to be preserved and broadcast. Some rarities are here for anyone who wants to unearth them. Today, I'd like to offer one that could have been among the special features of a French edition of Snow White. This is an educational short directed during WWII, in 1943 called "The Winged Scourge" which shows the ways used then to fight against disease using the seven dwarfs as teachers. It seems that nobody noticed until now, but this film was dubbed in French, probably soon after the war. The French version is called "Un fléau ailé". I've tried to restore it but there are still missing bits. The film is quite enjoyable and very important as a piece of cinema History (although I wouldn't listen to the dwarfs' advice if I were you).

I hope you appreciated this especially long article in which I tried to share some of my discoveries and some of my collection. Please feel free to leave a comment below or on Facebook. I will be very happy to talk to you.
Don't forget to hit "like" on the Facebook page for more. Check out the Snow White Museum too!
That's all for today folks!