AllMovie

When told that the handsome foreign prince (Creighton Hale) has fallen in love with someone other than his intended, Dorothy Cumming's narcissistic Queen Bragomar responds with a kittenish "Oh, my poor boy! Really, I'm so much older than you." Cumming, who later proved so mean to Lillian Gish in The Wind (1929), obviously took on Famous-Players' screen version of Snow White in the spirit that playwright Winthrop Ames had intended, as a sly burlesque on the Brothers Grimm. Marguerite Clark, in contrast, played her title role completely straight and it is hard to believe at this late day and age that she at one time had been a serious competitor to Mary Pickford. One thing is for certain: "America's Sweetheart" would never have allowed herself to be as lifeless as Clark's star-crossed princess. Yes, Marguerite smiles pleasantly and wrings her hands appropriately in despair but hers is a Christmas Pageant version of a fairy tale heroine, never the real thing. Even if future discoveries may yet explain Marguerite Clark's nearly unprecedented popularity in the mid to late 1910s, Snow White remains a stilted version of a beloved Broadway play that does little to enhance the reputation of its dainty leading lady.