{"id":77253,"date":"2023-01-10T00:01:55","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T08:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/?p=77253"},"modified":"2023-01-10T00:23:27","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T08:23:27","slug":"universal-internationals-the-snow-queen-on-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/universal-internationals-the-snow-queen-on-records\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal-International\u2019s \u201cThe Snow Queen\u201d on Records"},"content":{"rendered":"

A winter sound trek with the animated feature that inspired Miyazaki, captivated the Cannes Film Festival and became a Decca album with the voice of Gidget.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

\n

The Story and Music from
\nHans Christian Andersen\u2019s
\nTHE SNOW QUEEN<\/strong>
\nThe Sound Track Album\u2028<\/em> Decca DL-78977 (Stereo) \/ DL-8977 (Mono)<\/p>\n

\u2028Released in 1959.<\/strong> Adapted from the 1957 Russian version written by Nikolai Erdman, Lev Atamanov, Georgly Grebner, and Nikolay Zabalotsky; produced by Lev Atamanov and Nickolay Petrovich Fydorov and Directed by Lev Atamanov for Soyuzmultfilm Studio. English screenplay: Alan Lipscott, Bob Fisher, Dialogue Supervisor\/Editor: Hugo Grimaldi. Songs: Diane Lampert. Richard Loring. Music: Frank Skinner. Music Supervisor: Joseph Gershenson. English Dialogue Version Producer: Robert Faber. Technical Supervisor: Dave Fleischer. Sound Track Album Running Time: 40 minutes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Voices<\/strong>:\u00a0Paul Frees (Old Dreamy\/Narrator, Bucky); Sandra Dee (Gerda); Tommy Kirk (Kay); Lillian Buyeff (Granny); Patty McCormick (Angel); Louise Arthur (Snow Queen); June Foray (Finnish Woman). (The voice of the Lapland woman who writes on the fish remains to be confirmed.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2028Songs:<\/strong> \u201cThe Snow Queen,\u201d and \u201cDo It While You\u2019re Young,\u201d by Diane Lampert and Richard Loring.\u2028Instrumental: \u201cThe Jolly Robbers\u201d by Richard Loring.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>In the late 1950s, feature animation was becoming so expensive that Sleeping Beauty<\/em> was somewhat of a risk for Walt Disney. Nor was 1001 Arabian Nights<\/em> a sure thing for UPA, even with the popular Mister Magoo in his first feature. Both underperformed in their initial releases. All the film studios were looking for ways to capture the family audiences that were getting used to staying home with their TV. Since WWII, Disney had only released a handful of new \u201csingle-story\u201d animated features but was doing well with reissues of earlier titles.<\/p>\n

Universal-International surely had high hopes for The Snow Queen<\/em> in 1959, a film that had already won several major international awards, including one for animation at the Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The film took over two years to produce, using some of the classic Disney techniques including personality animation using live models and some rotoscoping. Universal managed to gain approval from both Walt Disney and Samuel Goldwyn for the release, as they both had plans to adapt the Hans Christian Andersen story for a film (decades before Frozen<\/em> began to thaw).<\/p>\n

The Snow Queen<\/em> was also a Russian film, directed by Lev Atamanov and produced by Soyuzmultfilm, one of the world\u2019s most prestigious studios (Roy E. Disney visited many years later and was presented with this film created to honor Mickey Mouse.) Releasing it during the height of the Cold War gave the film a transcendent place in world history. (There is a lot more detail about this, the production, and various influences, on this Wikipedia page<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

This is the original Russian language version:<\/p>\n