The Snow Queen

The Snow Queen (Снежная королева Snezhnaya koroleva) is a 1957 Soviet live-action/animated film directed by Lev Atamanov. It was produced at the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow and is based on the story of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen.

Dubbing History
In 1959, the film was dubbed into English and released by Universal Pictures with the voices of Sandra Dee and Tommy Kirk as Gerda and Kay. This version is introduced by a six-minute live-action Christmas prologue featuring TV personality Art Linkletter, as well as a two-minute montage. In this prologue, Linkletter recited the following rhyme just before the film began: "One snowflake two/three snowflakes four/And now you'll see 'The Snow Queen'/if you add a million more." The American version also contained an entirely rewritten musical score and had three new songs in English, two of which replaced the Russian songs (the other one was in the montage).

In 1985, Jim Terry produced an English dub that was released by Celebrity Home Entertainment in 1993. The theme song for the dub was provided by Bullets. The main characters Gerda and Kay's names were changed to Yvette and John.

In the 1990s, Jove Films restored the film and created a new English soundtrack for it, featuring the voices of Kathleen Turner, Mickey Rooney, Kirsten Dunst, and Laura San Giacomo. It was shown on television in 1995 as part of the "Mikhail Baryshnikov's Stories from My Childhood" series and was later released on video and DVD in 1999. French and Spanish soundtracks were added for the DVD version, with the French soundtrack featuring Catherine Deneuve, and the Spanish track featuring Beatriz Aguirre. Following criticism of the non-inclusion of the Russian soundtrack on the DVD, Jove Films also released a DVD of the film containing the original Russian soundtrack with English subtitles sometime in 2006.