Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs

Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (working title: So White and de Sebben Dwarfs) was a Merrie Melodies animated cartoon directed by Bob Clampett, produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions, and released to theatres on January 16, 1943 by Warner Bros. Pictures and The Vitaphone Corporation.

History

Overview

As Coal Black opens little black girl asks her "mammy" to tell her the story of "So White an' de Sebben Dwarfs". In this version of the story, all of the characters are African-American, and speak all of their dialogue in rhyme. The story is set during World War II in America, and the original tale's fairy-tale wholesomeness is replaced in this film by a hot jazz mentality and sexual overtones. Several scenes unique to Disney's film version of Snow White, such as the wishing-well sequence, the forest full of staring eyes, and the awakening kiss, are directly parodied in this film. The film was intended to have been named So White and de Sebben Dwarfs, which producer Leon Schlesinger thought was too close to the original film's actual title, and had changed to Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs.

Related Topics:
Mammy - African-American - World War II - Jazz - Leon Schlesinger

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Clampett intended Coal Black as both a parody of Snow White and a dedication to the all-black jazz musical films popular in the early 1940s. In fact, the idea to produce Coal Black came to Clampett after he saw Duke Ellington's 1941 musical revue Jump for Joy, and Ellington and the cast suggested Clampett make a black musical cartoon. The Clampett unit made a couple of field trips to Club Alabam, a Los Angeles area black club, to get a feel for the music and the dancing, and Clampett cast popular radio actors as the voices of his main three characters. The main character, So White, is voiced by Vivian Dandridge, sister of Dorothy Dandridge. Their mother, Ruby Dandridge, voices the wicked Queen. Zoot Watson is the voice of "Prince Chawmin'" (here depicted as a black man with straightened hair, a monocle, and gold teeth (with dice in place of the front two incisors). The other characters, including the Sebben Dwarfs, are voiced by standard Warner voice artist Mel Blanc.

Related Topics:
Musical film - 1940s - Duke Ellington - 1941 - Los Angeles - Vivian Dandridge - Dorothy Dandridge - Ruby Dandridge - Zoot Watson - Monocle - Gold teeth - Mel Blanc

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Originally, Clampett wanted an all-black band to score the cartoon, the same way Max and Dave Fleischer had Cab Calloway and His Orchestra score the Betty Boop cartoons Minnie the Moocher, The Old Man of the Mountain, and their own version of Snow White. However, Schlesinger refused, and the black band Clampett had hired, Eddie Beale and His Orchestra, only recorded the music for the final kiss sequence. The rest of the film was scored, as was standard for Warner cartoons, by Carl W. Stalling.

Related Topics:
Max - Dave Fleischer - Cab Calloway and His Orchestra - Betty Boop - Minnie the Moocher - The Old Man of the Mountain - Snow White - Carl W. Stalling

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Synopsis

The wicked queen is a food hoarder, with a large repository of items that were on ration during World War II: rubber, sugar, gin ("Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin" brand) and more. She asks her magic mirror to "send her a prince about six feet 'tall'", but when Prince Chawmin' arrives in his flashy car, he declares "that mean ol' queen sho'is a fright/but her gal So White is dyn-a-mite!" Finding So White hard at work doing the laundry, the prince takes her hand and the two swing out into a wild jitterbug. The queen sees this and hires "Murder, Incorporated" ("We rub out anybody for $1.00; Midgets: half-price; Japs: free") to "black-out So White".

Related Topics:
Eli Whitney - Cotton Gin - Jitterbug

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The assassins kidnap the girl, but set her free in the woods unharmed (just before they drive off, the assassins are seen covered with So White's lipstick, giving evidence to exactly how she earned her freedom). Wandering through the woods by herself, So White runs into the Sebben Dwarfs, seven diminutive army men in uniform. They immediately recruit her as their squad cook, and she spends her days "fryin' up eggs an' pork chops too" for the hungry soldiers.

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Meanwhile, the queen has learned that So White is still alive, and pumps an apple full of poison, to give to the girl and kill her. The queen disguises herself as an old peddler woman, and arrives at the Sebben Dwarfs' camp and gives So White the poisoned apple. One of the seven dwarfs (obviously derived from the "Dopey" dwarf in Disney's film) alerts the others that the queen has caused So White to "kick the bucket", and the entire squad hops into its vehicles (a Jeep, a "Beep", and, for "Dopey", a "Peep"). As the queen makes her escape over the hills, the dwarfs load a cannon with both a war shell and "Dopey", and the dwarf sails over to the queen on the bullet and knocks the crone out with a mallet.

Related Topics:
Dopey - Jeep

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Even though the queen has been defeated, So White is still dead to the world:

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:She's outta this world!

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:She's stiff as wood!

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:She's got it bad, and that ain't good!

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:There's only one thing that'll remedy this,

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:And that's Prince Chawmin' and his Dynamite Kiss!

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Upon the dwarfs' invoking of his name, the prince appears and promises to "give her a kiss/and it won't be a dud/I'll bring her to life with my special 'Roooooooose-buuuuud'!". Wiping his lip and leaning over the girl in preparation, Prince Chawmin' proceeds to give So White a succession of highly aerobic kisses, practically swallowing the girl's face whole, but without any luck. Prince Chawmin' keeps frantically kissing the girl to wake her up (his efforts underscored by a solo from Eddie Beale's trumpet player), and the efforts literally take the life out of him, and he turns into a withered old man, shrugging his shoulders in defeat. The "Dopey" dwarf then saunters over to So White, and lays a kiss on the girl so dynamic that not only does So White wake up, but her eyes become large as saucers and her pigtails fly straight up into the air (depicted in Rod Scribner's typically wacky animation style).

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The worn-out and aged Prince asks "Dopey", "man, what you got/to make So White think you so hot?!" "Dopey" replies, "well, dat is a military secret," and lays another kiss on So White, which sends her pigtails sailing into the air again and causes them to turn into twin American flags as the film fades to its "That's all, Folks!" end title.

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Controversy

Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs is notorious for being one of the Censored Eleven: one of several Warner Bros. cartoons produced at the height of the based on politically incorrect racial humor. The racial overtones of the cartoon led to its being banned, and it has rarely been shown on television in the years since its release.

Related Topics:
Censored Eleven - Television

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Nevertheless, Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs is often praised and defended by film scholars and animation historians, and has often been included on lists of the greatest animated films ever made. One such list, the subject of Jerry Beck's 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, placed Coal Black at number twenty-three, based upon votes from over 1000 members of the American animation industry.

Related Topics:
Jerry Beck - 1994

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