A young woman is more fair and beautiful than a jealous, vindictive queen, so she's sent to live with seven dwarf miners charged with hiding her in their remote forest home.

But the evil queen of the land learns of the girl's existence thanks to a magic mirror that knows and sees all but talks in riddles. She tracks the girl down, posing as an old lady bearing an apple as a gift.

But the apple contains poison that puts the young girl into a coma and as the miners have come to love her they seek out the prince whose kiss can awaken her.

Like most fairy stories, it's as grotesque and gothic as it is cute, sweet and lovey-dovey, as the name of its famous authors suggests.

But like many Grimm and Andersen fairy tales given the Disney treatment during the 20th century, it's the latter that gets most of the aesthetic, along with a healthy dose of happy music that's so old it's historic as well as iconic, anthropomorphism and the hand drawn animation that's inspired generations since well into the Pixar age.

And like many other films in the genre and class, it carries a strange effect. Even somebody as young as I am in comparison to the film itself was around long before we viewed movies so cynically. So even though it's probably the result of the many hallmarks of Walt's iron-fisted and apparently abusive sense of control (note how the entire cast is uncredited anywhere in the film), I don't think there are many people who don't respond viscerally to a lone voice crying out 'Hi hooooooooooo!'

It's also responsible for a rash of records, including being the first animated feature length movie to ever come out of the USA, the first soundtrack to a film released commercially, the highest grossing film and if you believe Battleship Potemkin director Sergei Eisenstein, the greatest movie ever made.