Saturday, December 18, 2004

Weenedn Assignement #39- Snow White and the Seven Imposters

When the novelty wore off, the family moved the wind-up Victrola to the kid’s room. That was me. Wow, a phonograph of my own, and all the family’s records, in my own room. Just watching the turntable spin wildly at 78 rpm was a treat.

When I had listened to Sailor Jack, William Tell Overture, or classical music hundreds of times I needed new material.

The movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was about to be released, and the music had been recorded in an RCA album. It was a soundtrack recording, right from the film, and I could listen to it right in my own room.

It took overtime wheedling, but I was taken to the music store, and there it was: for $7.98. But that was in 1935-dollars, which were hard to come by.

My mother said, “I’m really sorry, but I just can’t pay for the RCA-Victor album.”

I was offered a compromise. Frank Luther, whoever he is, had made a version of Snow White, by his writers, played and sung by his musicians, on Bluebird Records, for $2.95. It was a Hobson’s choice: this or nothing. I may have been a purist, but I was a kid. I caved. I got the Bluebird records.

“Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho,” sang Luther’s musicians. “Halt. Somebody’s shoes are a-squeekin’.”

Squeaking? There’s no squeaking in Disney’s Snow White. Who said that? Doc? Grumpy? Surely not Dopey. That complaining dwarf is an imposter.

So I had to live with Frank Luther and his band of fake Bluebird dwarfs. They are probably still a-squeekin’ in the storage shed with my Orphan Annie de-coder rings, and my Ovaltine drinking cups and the other shattered dreams of my childhood. The adultery of childhood may be as bitter as the adultery of adulthood.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Life can be cruel but as you say it is worth living.  Childhood? I think for lots of us it is a shattered dream. It is humour that wins through.
Sylvia

Anonymous said...

I love "Snow White " I have the movie on DVD my kids got it for Christmas for me one year. They know they can always get me a Disney movie.I actuall have a tatto of the 7 Dwafs up the side of my left leg......Kasey

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of an album called (if I remember correctly) Ed Sullivan Presents My Fair Lady by the Ed Sullivan Singers.  I have no idea why we had this LP in the early 1960s. I suppose my mom bought it on the premise that it was cheaper than the Julie Andrews or Audrey Hepburn-Marni Nixon versions. I loved My Fair Lady, so I tried to listen to this record once in the early 1970s. Oh, the horror! The horror! Imagine "Wouldn't it be Loverly" as sung by a chorus in clipped, overpronunciated Middle American accents.

Oh, and like you, a got a fake Disney not-the-soundtrack once. I didn't get to see Mary Poppins on the big screen--ever--but I really, really wanted the soundtrack.  What I got was an EP with about six songs on it.  As best I can determine now, it was sung with Richard Sherman (who co-wrote those wonderful songs) and Marni Nixon. "This other record is cheaper, so we'll buy that instead" strikes again!

Karen