3809. Queen Grimhilde

The film version of the Queen was often referred to as Queen Grimhilde in Disney publications of the 1930s, and was voiced by Lucille La Verne. Her appearance was inspired by the character of Queen Hash-a-Motep from the 1935 film She, played by Helen Gahagan. The Queen ranks #10 in the American Film Institute's list of the 50 Best Movie Villains of All Time, the highest-ranked animated villain. A vain and proud beauty, the Queen gained her royal position by marrying a widowed king who departed soon after marrying her, leaving her as current ruler of the kingdom. She was jealous of Snow White's beauty, so she made Snow White a scullery maid. The Queen had a magical mirror with which she could look upon whatever she wished. The Magic Mirror shows a haunted, smoky face which replies to the Queen's requests. She regularly asks the mirror who is the fairest in the land ("Magic mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?"), and the mirror always replies that she is. One day, the mirror tells her that there is a new fairest woman in the land, her stepdaughter, Snow White. After observing the handsome prince, singing a love song to Snow White, the Queen, in a jealous rage, orders her faithful huntsman Humbert to take the Princess deep into the forest and kill her. He is ordered to bring back her heart in a box to prove that he had done so. Humbert could not bear to kill the young princess, so he tells Snow White of the Queen's plot and tells her to run away and never to return. In order to escape the penalty, he returns with a pig's heart and gives it to the Queen. When she questions her mirror, it again replies that Snow White is the fairest in the land, and that she is living at the cottage of the seven dwarfs. Furious that Humbert tricked her, the Queen goes down into the dungeon laboratory and mixes a potion that turns her into a hag. Her beauty is shrouded in ugliness and age. This appearance of the Queen is commonly referred to as The Witch or The Old Hag. She then conjures a poison apple which will cause death-like sleep and proceeds to leave the castle. She is sure that no one would know or perform the counter-curse to her spell, and believes the dwarfs would bury Snow White alive, thinking her dead. The Queen comes to the cottage, followed by two vicious buzzards, and finds Snow White baking a pie for Grumpy the dwarf. Somehow, Snow White's animal friends realize that the old hag is the Queen. After an unsuccessful attempt to warn Snow White by attacking the Queen, they go to warn the dwarfs of the Queen's arrival. The Queen tricks Snow White into letting her inside the cottage and eating the poisoned apple, telling her that it is a magic wishing apple. Snow White takes a bite and falls to the floor, apparently dead. The Queen rejoices in her victory, but is soon discovered by the seven dwarfs, who chase her deep into the forest as a great storm begins. She climbs up into the mountains, where she stands upon a precipice that overlooks a seemingly bottomless canyon, and attempts to push down a large boulder to crush the dwarfs. Just then, a lightning bolt strikes between her and the boulder, destroying the precipice and sending the Queen (along with the boulder) down the cliff, screaming while she falls to the jagged rocks below. As the dwarfs look wide-eyed over the cliff's edge, they cannot see her. The buzzards fly past, to eat the evil Queen's corpse. Her castle is taken over by the prince and Snow White, after his kiss revives her.