Within the Carthay Circle neighborhood in Los Angeles stood the famed Carthay Circle Theatre, one of the most famous movie palaces of Hollywood’s Golden Age. On this day in 1937, the theatre was the site of a lavish star-studded premiere for the first full-length animated feature, Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Popular radio personality Don Wilson broadcasted live from the premiere and revealed a talent for description. “As you can well tell from the background, gaiety is the keynote. Under this bright starlit night, people are laughing and smiling as they walk down the blue carpeted aisle to the theatre entrance. This aisle is lined by hundreds and hundreds of people, some standing, some sitting in the special stands that have been provided for them. Many of them have been here for hours, awaiting the stupendous occasion. They’ve all heard reports that have filled Hollywood since Snow White was sneak previewed last week, that this full-length feature is the most entertaining and exciting movie Walt Disney has ever made, and that’s saying a great deal. We’re standing in a glare of floodlights around the theatre, the searchlight beams are waving across the sky, and at my left is a box office. There is no public sale of tickets for tonight’s performance, of course, the house has been sold out for many, many days. A long line of patrons is at the advance window, making reservations for later in the run… The whole atmosphere around here is fantastic, almost unreal tonight… You know, I’ve never seen a premiere as gay and as merry as this one… I hear that this beautiful story, as Walt Disney treats it in Technicolor, is going to make motion picture history. That it is as significant as the introduction of sound, that it opens up an entirely new form of storytelling, and that’s why blasé Hollywood is here, and that’s why the theatre is sold out. Everyone wants to be on hand for this big, happy, important event.”
