Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Walt Disney chose the fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for his first animated feature film – and the movie-going audiences loved it! Indeed, it’s widely-heralded as a masterpiece and made Disney a household name – and a fortune. But it probably wouldn’t have been so popular had Uncle Walt kept in some of the more disturbing elements of the story.
Disney’s version was somewhat true to the Brothers Grimm story. For instance, in both, Snow White’s wicked stepmother, the evil queen, becomes jealous of her beauty and wants her dead. In the film, she gives Snow White a poisoned apple. But in the original, she asks a hunter to take her into the forest and kill her so that she can be the “fairest of them all”. What’s more, she asks the hunter bring back Snow White’s lungs and her liver so that she knows the dastardly deed has been done. Of course, the hunter can’t bring himself to butcher the young beauty, so he kills a wild boar instead and takes its organs back to the queen. In a sick twist, the mad monarch eats them!
The cartoon ending is also a little more suitable for children. When Snow White and her handsome prince wed, the groom commands that the evil queen be condemned to dance until her death. But what Disney didn’t include from the original was the bit where the prince puts his bride’s nemesis in burning hot iron shoes, and it’s these that make her dance wildly until she drops dead.