Hollywood History

The Making of SNOW WHITE and the SEVEN DWARFS (Photoplay Magazine, 1938)

The attached article is essentially a behind the scenes look at the making of Walt Disney’s 1938 triumph Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:


• He employed 569 people who worked all day and frequently all night to finish it.


•The film took three and half years to make and cost $1,500,000.00.


•He concocted 1500 different paints to give it unmatched color.


•He spent $70,000.00 developing a brand new camera to give it depth.


•He threw away four times the drawings he made and the film he shot.


•He made over 2,000,000 separate drawings…


Although Disney’s wife, Lilian, was said to have remarked, No one’s ever gonna pay a dime to see a dwarf picture, the movie generated more box office receipts than any other film in 1938.

The Making of SNOW WHITE and the SEVEN DWARFS (Photoplay Magazine, 1938) Read More »

The Making of SNOW WHITE and the SEVEN DWARFS (Photoplay Magazine, 1938)

The attached article is essentially a behind the scenes look at the making of Walt Disney’s 1938 triumph Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:


• He employed 569 people who worked all day and frequently all night to finish it.


•The film took three and half years to make and cost $1,500,000.00.


•He concocted 1500 different paints to give it unmatched color.


•He spent $70,000.00 developing a brand new camera to give it depth.


•He threw away four times the drawings he made and the film he shot.


•He made over 2,000,000 separate drawings…


Although Disney’s wife, Lilian, was said to have remarked, No one’s ever gonna pay a dime to see a dwarf picture, the movie generated more box office receipts than any other film in 1938.

The Making of SNOW WHITE and the SEVEN DWARFS (Photoplay Magazine, 1938) Read More »

D.W. Griffith: His Minor Masterworks (Rob Wagner’s Script, 1946)

In 1946 the Museum of Modern Art Film Department decided to exhibit only the most famous films of D.W. Griffith for the retrospective that was being launched to celebrate the famed director. This enormous omission inspired film critic Herb Sterne (1906 – 1995) to think again about the large body of work that the director created and, putting pen to paper, he wrote:

Because of the museum’s lack of judgment, the Griffith collection it has chosen to circulate is woefully incomplete, thereby giving contemporary students of the motion picture a distorted and erroneous impression of the scope of the man’s achievements.


To read a 1924 article regarding Hollywood film executive Irving Thalberg, click here.

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William Holden (Coronet Magazine, 1956)

The attached profile of actor William Holden (1918 – 1981) appeared in print when his stock was about to peak.


When the summer of 1956 rolled around, Holden was already a double nominee for a BAFTA (Picnic), an Oscar (Sunset Boulevard) and was the grateful recipient of an Academy Award for Best Actor one year earlier (Stalag 17). In 1957 his performance in the Bridge on the River Kwai would bring even more pats on the back (although the Best Actor statue would go to Alec Guinness).


This five page interview tells the story of Holden’s initial discovery in Hollywood, his devotion to both the Screen Actor’s Guild and Paramount Pictures. His Hollywood peers held him in especially high-regard:

In a poll of Hollywood reporters recently he was designated ‘the best adjusted and happiest actor around’; by contrast, the same poll identified Humphrey Bogart as a total pain in the keister – click here to read that article.

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