In the early days of its career as an entertainment business, Disney, under the direction of Walt Disney and his staff, kept fairly true to the stories of the fairy tales they were transforming into animated and live-action films. Short pieces in the 1920s and 30s were almost carbon copies of well known stories like “The Little Red Riding Hood” and “The Ugly Duckling.” By the time Snow White and the Seven Dwarves hit the silver screen, the company had several fairy tale pieces under their belt, with little to no variation whatsoever in the retellings.
These early films kept much closer to the source material than Disney’s later films, which diverged and began adding multiple twists to the story. Is this a bad thing? Not at all. It’s just interesting to see the progression of the company’s retelling habits. From carbon copy to almost polar opposite, Disney’s soon to be 100-year reign of animated fairy tale retelling is as varied as it is successful, and they are one of the reasons the retelling tradition is alive and well.
They also complicate the world of fairy tale retelling, but that’s a post for another day (and there are plenty of fairy tale scholars who have already beat that dead horse).
For now, let’s take a look at the three Disney movies that are almost exactly like their original stories.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937)
Though there are some differences between this movie and the original tale as written by the Grimm Brothers, like the queen asking for Snow White’s heart instead of her lungs and liver, and the lack of charming animal companions, and the three attempts on Snow’s life being reduced to one in the movie, there’s a lot that is kept the same.
Snow White isn’t forced to be a servant in the original, but the queen’s hatred for her and her constant consulting of the Magic Mirror is par for the course. Eventually it gets to be too much once the Mirror confirms that Snow White is now prettier than the queen. In both tales, the queen summons a huntsman to kill Snow White. And in both versions, he fails.
The flight through some scary woods is in both, as is coming across a charming little cottage owned by seven little men. Though in the original tale it’s neat and orderly, which would have been a pleasant surprise for Disney’s Snow White. At least the Disney Snow White didn’t eat off of every plate, drink from every cup, and lay in every bed. That’s just rude.
Even so, the dwarves let her stay in both versions, and she does all the cooking and cleaning while they’re off mining in the mountains.
The main differences are that the queen only makes one attempt on Snow White’s life, skipping straight to the poisoned apple, and the presence of the prince at the beginning of the story. Granted, having the prince arrive at the beginning and fall for the living, breathing, singing Snow White is a lot better than him just stumbling across her and asking to cart her home to set up like a fancy vase or something.
But other than those minor details, it doesn’t do much to change up the story.
Cinderella (1950)
A lot of people like to point out that Disney’s Cinderella is nothing like the original story. The stepsisters don’t cut up their feet, there’s no magicky tree, and most importantly the original doesn’t have a fairy godmother who does all these miraculous things.
Well…those people are right. The 1950 (and 2015) Disney movie is nothing like the Grimm Brothers’ version. It’s the near-perfect replica of the Charles Perrault version.
The matching elements are as follows: Widower remarries, the stepmother and two stepsisters treat his daughter with contempt, she is forced to do all the housework but remains exceedingly kind throughout her trials, a prince throws a ball, the sisters get all dressed up to go but Cinderella is left behind, a godmother (possibly of the fairy variety) shows up and transform a pumpkin, some mice, and Cinderella, Cinderella goes to the ball, loses a glass slipper, the prince uses the slipper to find her, and they live happily ever after.
No, really, the differences are so minor they’re easy to miss. In the original the animals transformed to accompany Cinderella to the ball are different (it’s six mice, one rat, and six lizards in the original), and there are two balls. Cinderella gets through the first one just fine but loses the slipper at the second. She also shows plenty of kindness to her stepsisters, who ask for forgiveness at the end, which she willingly gives.
Disney also made the stepmother out to be more of a villain in their 1950 film, locking Cinderella away and causing the destruction of one of the glass slippers. But in my humble opinion, it was a good move. Things were just a little too easy for the Perrault Cinderella, you know?
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
This is another tricky one where “just like the original” depends on a specific version. In this case, this Disney movie is just like the Grimm Brothers’ version.
Like with Cinderella, Disney made the decision to really flesh out the villain in this movie. In my opinion, to this day, Maleficent still seems like one of the most powerful and strangely evil villains Disney ever made. Back before there was this craze to redefine and identify with villains, she was Pure Evil.
In the movie she’s just casually not invited to young Aurora’s christening. In the fairy tale, it’s sort of an accidental oversight. The king has 12 golden plates, but 13 fairies hanging out in his kingdom. So he just doesn’t invite one. She shows up, obviously slighted, and puts a curse on the baby, like in the movie. In both tales, a fairy pops up after her and mitigates the damage.
The differences start to grow between the tales at this point. In the movie the king sends Aurora away to be raised by the three kind fairies. In the original, she just grows up around the castle, and it’s an accident that she stumbles across a spindle — not a spinning wheel like in the movie — which should have been burned by the king’s decree.
Most of the differences lie in the fact that the movie attributes actions to specific people, rather than just let them be things that happen. In the original, Brier Rose grows up without anything exciting happening and happens accidentally across the object that will send her into a cursed slumber. The people of the castle fall asleep around her at the same time, and the thorns pop up on their own as well. Then it’s just, oh, one hundred years before a prince pops up, finds her, and kisses her awake, ending the curse.
The Disney movie makes these things conscious choices of the heroes or villains. Maleficent leads Aurora to the spinning wheel and curses the land with thorns, and the good fairies put the castle to sleep so Aurora won’t be alone when she wakes. Then hurry to save Prince Phillip so he can break the spell. Which he does, pretty much on the same day (night?) that Aurora fell asleep.
Prince Phillip is another Disney invention. The savior prince of the fairy tale doesn’t know Brier Rose, but Prince Phillip, who is betrothed to Aurora at her birth, finds her in the woods before her curse. They have a smallish date, and then he gets kidnapped, and then saved, and then fights valiantly through the thorns, slaying a dragon to reach her side and kiss her awake.
Because a kiss after a first date is better than kissing a random, sleeping stranger.
Disney-fied Moral: Don’t kiss random, sleeping strangers. Just don’t.
The Trend
In just three movies, we start to see the trend Disney movies have on the retelling of fairy tales. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was just an abridged (slightly less scary) version of the original tale. Cinderella started to flesh out villains and add more conflict to the story lines. Sleeping Beauty really took off with the more villainous trend and really added to an otherwise slightly boring fairy tale.
This trend of adding and morphing would continue to grow with Disney’s retelling of fairy tales, introducing spunkier heroines (Ariel, Belle, Jasmine), more iconic villains not present in the originals (Ursula, Gaston, Jafar), and more modern plots to appeal to the current generations of that time.
By the time we hit the late 2000s and 2010s, the movies have made certain fairy tales almost unrecognizable. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Fairy tales retold with a good twist and a fresh plot can be very successful, and still shine with the original story’s nostalgic or timeless feel. But sometimes you can change so much it doesn’t feel like a retelling at all, but an original tale. Does it count as a retelling, then? That’s up to the viewer or the reader.
Interested in those unrecognizable fairy tales? Check back Thursday for 3 Disney movies NOT exactly like their original tales.