The first Spanish dubbing of Snow White

The blueprint

According to J.B. Kaufman, work on this first foreign version of Snow White began as early as the summer of 1937. The voices were recorded in October 1937 when scenes were still unfinished and the editing wasn’t even finalized yet. The Spanish version was finalized and first screened on February 27 at the Carthay Circle Theater, which kept showing it every Sunday afternoon for nine additional weeks.

Recording and mixing all foreign versions inhouse was a studio habit with Silly Symphonies and other shorts. Hence, it was only natural that the feature’s first foreign version was made that way too. But it soon became apparent that the resulting faults that were midly acceptable for cartoon shorts, became painfully obvious for such a publicized production.

Thelma Hubbard, one of the voices considered for the English speaking version, and actually played the Princess on the radio, happened to be able to speak Spanish, which was considered sufficient for her to land the role, in spite of her strong accent.

When critics pointed out some of the faults, it was too late to change plans for the second foreign version: the French one, but the following versions were recorded either in Brasil or in Europe, so as to improve the quality of the translations and of the voices.