"What did you think of Snowwhite and the vii Dwarfs? . . . Leaving out the tiresome question of whether it is suitable for children (which I don't know and don't care) I thought it almost inconceivably good and bad - I mean, I didn't know one human being could be so good and bad. The worst thing of all was the faces of the dwarfs. Dwarfs ought to be ugly of course, but not in that way. And the dwarfs' jazz party was pretty bad. I suppose it never occurred to the poor boob that you could give them any other kind of music. But all the terrifying bits were good, and the animals really most moving: and the use of shadows (of dwarfs and vultures) was real genius. What might not have come of it if this man had been educated - or even brought up in a decent society?"
Letter to A.K. Hamilton Jenkin, Jan 11th 1939
from "The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II"
PS That 1937 poster, above, went for $65,725 at auction in November 2007
(DVD available at Videomatica)
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