| UNDER CONSTRUCTION | |
 |
|
The Snow Queen is a 1956 American animated musical fantasy adventure film directed by Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, TBD and TBD and produced by Dora Wilson, based on the 1844 fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen. It is a joint production effort between DW Cartoon Department and Harman-Ising Cartoons. The film features the voices of Eartha Kitt, Jimmy Durante, Jerry Colonna and Christopher Lee, as well as Wilson's two grandchildren and later regular voice actors Anna and Thomas Wilson as the two main characters, Gerda and Kay.
The film tells the story of a 5-year-old little girl named Gerda and her 8-year-old older brother Kay, who hear the legend of the mysterious Snow Queen. Offended by Kay's bragging about her, the Snow Queen puts a spell over his heart and then lures him to her snowy palace. Gerda tries to find the palace and save her brother, but is waylaid at one place after another. As she continues to search for Kay, the Snow Queen uses her magic to keep Gerda from save Kay before the first winter storm.
The film was initially released on December 20, 1956 by DW Film Pictures, to mixed reviews and was a box office failure, grossing $55 million domestically and $168 million worldwide. However, the film was included as part of the anthology TV series Dora Wilson's Stories from My Childhood, and proved to be very successful on television. It was eventually re-released in theaters during the 1970s and 1980s which proved to be massively successful. The film became even more successful through merchandising, prints, comics, video games and subsequent home video releases in the 1990s and even today. The film has since been regarded as one of DreamWorks' greatest animated classics, notably one of the biggest cult classics in the animation medium, as well as the best film adaptation of Andersen's works, and its home media releases have become very sought after.
A direct-to-video sequel, The Return of the Snow Queen, was released on November 6, 2001, and a direct-to-video prequel focusing on Larry the Crow, Larry: The Story of a Crow was released on September 12, 2006. In 2008, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".