The huntsman (in comics) in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is one of those characters that all the more requires realism because he is mainly used to create the fear necessary for the heroine’s escape. It is therefore out of the question to infuse him with any humor.
It is interesting to note that at a certain stage of development, it was planned to evoke the character only through his shadow, and close-ups of his shoes. The sequence thus planned did not have the necessary impact, so an actor was used to embody the character, animated mainly by Hamilton Luske.
An Unknown
Although several photographs from these shoots have survived, thanks in part to the family of animator Eroll Gray, who offered several for sale in 2012, the identity of this actor remains, to this day, a mystery. The original studio test photographs show the same actor that the rotoscope live action footage, but reveal that the huntsman’s costume was originally more cartoony and without a cape.
Ward Kimball considered the character to be “a good fat nothing” who was poorly developed. It’s hard to be that harsh in that he plays exactly the right role in the story and fades away afterwards, as he’s supposed to. But we can see from preparatory drawings that a sequence where he returned to the Queen with the heart of pig was originally planned. Similarly, the huntsman appeared in the sequels of the film published on paper.
