of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle, starring Will Rogers. Disney also considered making a feature film based on Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland, but it did not work out either due to Hal Roach acquiring rights for his own film adaptation of operetta, featuring Laurel and Hardy. In spring of 1934, Disney finally decided on Brothers Grimm's fairy tale Snow White, taking inspiration from 1916 silent film version, starring Marguerite Clark, that he saw as a teenager in Kansas City in January 1917. In early June 1934, he announced the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The New York Times, estimating that the film could be produced for a budget of $250,000, which was ten times the budget of an average Silly Symphony. Initially, the project, then known as "Feature Symphony", was developed by a small unit that Disney personally supervised, until in late October 1934 he acted out the entire story of Snow White to the rest of his staff, announcing that the film would be produced as a full-length animated film. While not the first animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was to be the first full-length cel animated feature in motion picture history. As such, Walt Disney had to fight to get the film produced. Both his brother and business partner Roy Disney and his wife Lillian attempted to talk him out of it, and the Hollywood movie industry derisively referred to the film as "Disney's Folly" while it was in production. He had to mortgage his house to help finance the film's production, which eventually ran up a total cost of $1,488,422.74, a massive sum for a feature film in 1937. Midway through, Disney needed a $250,000 loan to finish the film. Disney ran a rough cut for Joseph Rosenberg of Bank of America, who sat impassively during the showing. Then Rosenberg turned to the worried Disney and said, “Walt, that thing is going to make a hatful of money” and approved the loan. Story development On August 9, 1934, twenty-one pages of notes—entitled "Snowwhite suggestions"—were compiled by staff writer Richard Creedon, suggesting the principal characters, as well as situations and 'gags' for the story. As Disney had stated at the very beginning of the project, the main attraction of the story for him was the Seven Dwarfs, and their possibilities for "screwiness" and "gags"; the three story meetings held