Apparently the 1960 Disney version of Swiss Family Robinson is much more famous, although I haven't watched it yet. It's more famous because Disney bought the rights to this film and most of the copies of it and tried to have it destroyed so that people would remember their version better. It's not the darkest thing that Disney has ever done in its illustrious history, but it's up there. This film is much more of a morality play than we are used to in our modern films. A man, despairs at the future for his children, decides to immigrate to a safer place and in the process gets his family shipwrecked. He's quite happy about this because this is the life he wanted to lead, but his wife is less than enthusiastic. Upon researching the book for this review, discovered that there are multiple versions of the book and the book that is an English is quite different from the original German text. But this movie does something even different with the plot of the story - versions of the story it's a complete accident that they are shipwrecked and even worse they are shipwrecked because the crew abandons them, and they are just on their way to a new colony. The text version is definitely darker, but this film version the father decides that all of them are going to immigrate to a new country and none of them have a choice or right to decline. Even though the oldest son is about to join the military. So it adds this idea that all the troubles and tribulations that they go through are directly the result of their father's choices, conversely are a form of punishment from God. The acting is entertaining but decidedly theatrical. There's a scene where the mother sees a ship in the distance and there is a close up of her face as she shows big theatrical emotions. It's certainly an interesting movie to watch.
Review of Swiss Family Robinson
