Summary:
A Swiss family is shipwrecked on a tropical island where they struggle to survive.
My Thoughts:
This was one of my favorite films when I was a child, and to this day, I still think it’s pretty great, though I admit it does feel a bit dated. Still, if I had my way, Disney would take time to remake movies like this instead of films like “The Lion King” or “Jungle Book”. These kinds of films- ones that are based on classic adventure novels- are filled with family friendly fun and all sorts of excitement, but they’re also remarkably innocent, imaginative, and inspiring. “Swiss Family Robinson” turns sixty this year, and though there are a few moments that feel a bit dated, I’d say overall this movie is pretty timeless.
“Didn’t you ever dream of a house up on a tree top?”
A family traveling from Switzerland to New Guinea is shipwrecked on a tropical island. The family is comprised of a Father (John Mills, “Ryan’s Daughter”), a Mother (Dorothy McGuire, “Gentleman’s Agreement”), and three boys, Fritz (James MacArthur, “Hang ‘Em High”), Ernst (Tommy Kirk, “The Absent-Minded Professor”), and Francis (Kevin Corcoran, “Old Yeller”). As the family struggles to adjust to their new surroundings, they find that the island has many secrets, some good, some bad, their new home is threatened when a Pirate Chief (Sessue Hayakawa, “The Bridge on the River Kwai”) and his band circles the island, and they must fight to defend it.
I was honestly somewhat nervous to revisit the film as sometimes age and cynicism can tarnish films once dear to a younger, less-cynical version of me; still, we had decided to watch this and discuss with Fountain Street Church’s Virginia Anzengruber, so it’s not like I had much choice in the matter. I sat down and within ten minutes, I let out a huge sigh of relief, realizing that I would still love this movie through and through.
One thing I really love about this movie is the innocence of it all. Movies like this just had great way of portraying diligent, good-hearted people who fought for what was right and stuck to their morals. It’s rare nowadays that we see Christianity portrayed in films unless it’s in a Christian film or if that person is some kind of religious nut. When the family first gets to the shore, after escaping from the shipwreck and building a raft to make it to safety, the Father suggests that the first thing they do is start to build a shelter, but the Mother says, “Not the first thing,” and then she drops to her knees in prayer to thank God that they made it alive. I absolutely loved that.
I feel like we never see scenes like that anymore, but accompanying that scene (which feels like a relic from a bygone era) we also have a lot of scenes that feel dated in terms of gender identity. At the beginning of the film, Mother is treated as if she is a ridiculously dainty woman; she needs help getting onto the raft, she complains about the tree house not having railings, wears elaborate dresses in the jungle, and while the men are content to swing from vines, she seems to be the only one thinking about sensible things, sometimes putting a bit of a dour note on an otherwise lively day. The scenes where Fritz and Ernst run into Roberta (Janet Munro, “The Crawling Eye”) are dated feeling too. When they first meet her, Roberta is (unconvincingly) dressed as a boy, and Fritz and Ernst just keep pushing and pushing her to move faster, pull her own weight, that kind of thing. But as soon as she reveals herself to be a girl, everything changes, and the boys treat her as if she’s some poor helpless creature that needs a hand with everything. It’s a small bone to pick with the film, but I still feel like I’ve got to bring it up. I’m sure if you went back to any of these Disney adventure flicks (“Journey to the Center of the Earth”, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”) you’d have the same problem.
There is a lot of great stuff in this film though. The production design captured my imagination as a child; I wanted to grow up and live in a house just like the Swiss Family Robinson house. The way that the home is designed is, from a practical standpoint, ridiculous; it’s got running water, a retractable stairway, a makeshift refrigerator, a skylight, and three independent buildings all in one tree. These people were just shipwrecked, and we believe they built all this from the materials they found on the ship? Are we also supposed to believe that this family was able to bobby-trap their entire side of the island before pirates attacked and still have time to celebrate with an ostrich race? You sort of just have to accept that the family is very hardworking, and since this is a sixty-year-old kids’ movie, I really have no problem doing that. Like I said, it captured my imagination as a child, so I sort of can forgive the moments that are less plausible, because this film isn’t trying to be realistic, it’s trying to be an entertaining adventure, and it certainly accomplishes that.
The thing that makes this movie work so well is the fact that the adventure never seems to stop; something exciting is always happening. The family is trapped at sea, and then they make it to shore where there’s a tiger; they go back to the ship to get supplies and find out that there are pirates nearby. They struggle to survive with the animals they’ve found or brought with them. Fritz and Ernst have to travel around the island, and then back across the island. The film just moves at a fast pace, and though I do think it’s a bit too long in the middle (when Fritz, Ernst and Roberta are returning from their trek), I never loose interest in what’s going on.
Verdict:
Though I will admit this film has a few dated moments, overall, it’s still a marvelous adventure, one that I’m sure I’ll return to multiple times over the course of my life. I’ve loved this movie from the first time I saw it, and though I probably wouldn’t put this anywhere near my top 100 films, I’d still be willing to watch it almost any day of the week.
Review Written By: