The premiere engagement of Snow White in France took place at the Marignan Theater on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, starting May 6, 1938.
The program contains several ads, many of which are unexpected for a family-friendly film. Cigarettes that “protect your throat and keep your teeth white”, Rigaud perfume whose main selling point is full frontal female nudity on the back cover, tickets for the national lottery, a rotisserie where “Snow White likes to ride in her golden coach, etc. Two of these ads vary throughout the course of the run, in otherwise similar programs: the hairstylist Desfossé and cigarettes Filtra, both of which offer different visuals.
Like in the New York program, there is an ad for a charm bracelet sold by Cartier. Para Kay Delacoste boasts the exclusivity of the Snow White rubber toys, and Colcombet has the one for all “fabrics, ribbons and scarfs”.
A whole page lists all the records released by Columbia, Pathé and La voix de son maître (His Master’s Voice). They include French pressings of British records such as George Scott Wood, the Savoy hotel orphans, Joe Loss ; American ones (Guy Lombardo) and French ones by Lucienne Dugard and Ray Ventura.
About the film itself, the first text is mostly a presentation of Walt Disney, who “triumphs over the pessimists”. The personality of each dwarf is also presented. The following text, “How Snow White was made”, uses pictures of the artists and the studio. “The legend of Snow White” is also told on two pages, complete with the ending. A last page is dedicated to “the music in Snow White”, is a direct translation of “Effects & Sound” found in the British program.
The program at the Marignan is composed of a Pathé Journal newsreel, a documentary called “A Story of Penguins”, and the feature.
