It's spellbinding! I've just watched Snow White for the umpteenth time, and decided it's still as wondrous and lustrous as ever. The music, humour, and animation are stuck magically in the 1930's but it all seems as timeless as the story itself. The best place to see it is in a cinema of course, the same as my daughter and I did over and over again before Disney released it on video in '94.

All available positive epithets (magnificent, amazing, stupendous etc) apply to this one, nearly a 10 in my book. For good or bad SW will never be surpassed, because of capitalist pressures to ensure everything makes money: animation designed and drawn by human beings has lost out to the precise but soulless computer. Ditto music with tunes and marvellous lyrics played well. Gentle humour that the entire family can appreciate has given way to appreciation of smut and cynicism. And that's just Disney! My favourite bits: The song "Wishing", and looking up the well at SW; the dwarfs first seeing her SW in their beds asleep; the dwarfs' washing sequence and song. The only thing I never liked was the apparently rushed ending - the dwarfs are looking after SW's "inanimate" body through the seasons, this handsome guy comes along, kisses her and they both skedaddle into the massive sunset at warp speed! I think I wanted it to last another couple of hours.

Overall, to my feeble mind this is High Art! Highbrows probably don't like it because it was charming and incredibly popular, so does any normal person in the world dislike this film, and if so, why?

Snow White is the fairest one of all. The queen wants to be number one, so decides to come after her. Snow White, cut loose from the castle, stumbles upon a hut where seven dwarves are living - which is where the Queen comes for her, in disguise, with a poison apple...

This has classic written all over it. Disney's first major feature, the grand debut, cements the major features of those to come. It draws from very dark but fantastic material, Grimm's Fairy Tales, and alternates scenes of evocative darkness (the Queen's castle, the man sent to cut Snow White's heart out, and the forest that's alive, are some brilliant examples) with scenes of superlative cuteness and song and dance numbers.

Drawbacks:

There are some beautiful compositions, but the movement of the animation is not as fluid as it would become, even with Pinnochio, Disney's very next feature. Plus, the singing styles are very 1930's opera-style. I can see why i always used to just think of songs during musicals as things i had to wait through till the story got going again - its because almost every song in Snow White doesn't advance the story. Great musical numbers, like the ones in West Side Story, do. They don't feel like we're just waiting around. When most of the Snow White songs come on, the story gets put on hold.

Snow White is too naive, plain and perfect a character to hold our interest these days. Contemporary audiences just don't worship "perfect" people like this. Plus, the attempts at animation of real people is not good. Snow White and the Prince in particular just don't work - whereas the cartoony dwarves really come alive. Try watching her face when she talks.

Highlights:

All of the Queen's scenes are absolute gems, actually. And the dwarves are great. Seven great characters.

One of the best things Disney ever did was the Queen's angry walk down the staircase to the dungeon, and her subsequent making of a potion to transform herself into an old witch. The way the liquid she's mixing comes alive is fantastic, and the close-ups on the crow sitting on the skull are a nice touch.

The poison flooding towards the centre of the pot, engulfing the apple, and the jack o'lantern face on it afterwards.

Some of Disney's most classic songs come from Snow White: Whistle While You Work, Heigh Ho (its off to work we go), and one of the most beautiful Disney songs ever, Some Day My Prince Will Come.

There's also a very memorable piece of theme music that plays during the climactic storm scene.

10/10. An essential, marvellous work. A thing to see.