Silent movies - Snow White

Did you know that Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was inspired by his seeing a silent movie at the age of 15?
Let's have a look at that movie - "Snow White" from 1916.

Here's the plot (spoiler alert, let's see if everything is as you expect it!).

The movie starts with Santa Claus. I was surprised, too.
Santa Claus puts some dolls on a table which then turn into our cast. Charming.

"Once upon a time, a beautiful queen named Imogene, embroidering at an ebony frame, pricked her finger and shook the drop of blood on the snow outside the window. It looked so beautiful she said: 'I wish I had a little daughter with skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as my ebony frame.'"
Of course we know her wish was granted, but an evil lady of the court, Brangomar, conspired with the witch Hex to become more beautiful than the girl. That's right, we get two villains for the price of one.
For her help and the magic mirror, the witch demands Snow White's heart.

As predicted by Hex, Queen Imogene dies and Snow White's father marries Brangomar who treats her stepdaughter not better than a kitchen maid, so she has to meet the new Maids of Honour in the kitchen.
 

That's the Court Chamberlain Dandiprat Bombas on
the right, by the way, what a great name.

Sent out to the house of Berthold the huntsman to fetch ducks for the luncheon, Snow White sees a conure in a cage and tells Bertholds's children they should never cage a bird. They set it free and just make it outside in time to stop Prince Florimond of Calydon, who went a-hunting, from killing it. Of course he's smitten with her right away.

They meet again when he attends court. The Maids of Honour all lend Snow White something to wear (I'm not sure how they are still fully dressed except for their shoes afterwards) and all are veiled to hide her in their midst, but Florimond makes a beeline for her.
Brangomar is quite shocked about the message the Prince brings from his father who wishes for his son to marry his cousin, Snow White. After a short confusion (there is footage missing, this might be one of those moments), Brangomar decides that they have to wait for one year and one day during which she'll send Snow White to a "Boarding School for Backward Princesses". Wow, that's mean.

Poor Brangomar, not only did the Prince not come for her, but now the mirror tells her she's not the fairest anymore AND Hex pops up in a cloud of smoke to claim the promised heart. The things an evil Queen has to deal with!
So she summons Berthold and gives him the order to bring her Snow White's heart or she'll have his children locked up and starved.
He takes the Princess to the woods, but decides to kill a wild pig instead and leave her behind.
That's when the lion turns up.

And the conure is back to make her follow him to a little house.
The dwarfs who work in a mine with direct access from their house find the sleeping Snow White and hope she'll stay just so they can look at her (!). They give her little gifts and she's happy to stay as she has nowhere else to go.

The dwarfs are called Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick,
Whick ... and Quee (not in the pic).

Meanwhile, Berthold has taken the heart to Brangomar who has him put in the dungeon where his children already are, anyway (don't forget she's evil, so they are even in different cells).
The conure brings him a rope, though, which allows him to pull his children up and also to get the keys from the keeper.

Brangomar takes the heart to Hex who wanted it to fight her baldness, but since it's a pig's heart, she grows pig tails instead of hair!
The Queen questions the mirror where Snow White is and Hex transform her into a peddler which allows her to visit Snow White without being recognized as she obviously can't trust anyone else doing the job.

The first attempt with the poisoned comb fails because the bird tells a rabbit and the rabbit tells the dwarfs which save Snow White in time before the "peddler" can count to 100.
In the next attempt Brangomar becomes a pieman and Snow White eats the poisoned apple.
In the meantime, Berthold and his children have made it to the court of Calydon, and Florimond leaves immediately to look for Snow White only to find her dead.

They take her to Brangomar to avenge her, but what's that ... Snow White lives! The trip has loosened the bit of poisoned apple in her throat.
The Queen breaks her mirror and is ugly again while Hex finally gets the hair she always wanted.

For Snow White and Florimond it's happily living ever after, no doubt - dwarfs included whom Snow White asks to stay with her.

I don't know which versions of the fairy tale you know, so let's go into a few details.

This movie is based on a play from 1912 starring Marguerite Clark. Despite already being 29 at the time of the play, Clark, who was only 4 ft 10, was well suited for the role which she also played in the movie which was released on Christmas Day 1916 (which also explains Santa Claus).
Unfortunately, Clark is practically forgotten despite once being almost as popular as Mary Pickford. Most of her films were destroyed in a fire and "Snow White" had also been thought to be lost until a print was found in Amsterdam. It is missing parts, though, for example the delivery of Snow White to her parents by a stork.

Basically, the fairy tale is covered in the film, but there are obviously differences and I do have a few questions.

Most important, what's with the lion? You see him twice and he doesn't do anything. Is he supposed to stand for danger? Is there footage missing at that point?
What about Snow White being treated like a kitchen maid and what happened to her father? That's Cinderella, not Snow White, just like the Princess and Prince meeting before the ball and then get to share a dance.
We have two villains (one of them for comic relief?), but how does Hex get to celebrate with the court at the end? I mean she was ready to dine on Snow White's heart after all. And anyhow, why could she give Brangomar nice hair and not herself?
What happens to Brangomar? Was the ugliness her only punishment? That would be a lot nicer than the original ending in the fairy tale where she danced to her death in glowing hot shoes.
Where's the conure at the end? There's no doubt that he's the true hero of the movie.

It's nice, though, that Snow White and Florimond knew each other before she died. The idea of a Prince casually coming by to kiss a dead girl is a bit creepy if we're honest. A cousin taking home his fiancée - even if cousins marrying is weird to us today - makes much more sense and the bit with the apple is true to the original fairy tale.

The costumes are lovely (if you ignore them being a wild mix of styles) and there are some cute effects, such as the crown materializing on Snow White's head at the end.
I have seen a lot of fairy tale adaptations over the years and this one is sweet and gentle and not too gruesome for children.
And now you know to be careful about what not to use for hair growth!


Sources and further reading:

1. Scott Simmon and Martin Marks: Snow White (1916). On: National Film Preservation Foundation. Preserved Films. Film Notes
2. J. B. Kaufman: Snow White. On: San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Essay 2013
3. Fritzi Kramer: Snow White (1916) - A Silent Film Review. On: Movies Silently, March 2, 2014
4. Lea Stans: Fairytales Before Disney: Thoughts On "Snow White" (1916). On: Silent-ology, April 5, 2025