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Swiss Family Robinson (1940 film)

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Genre
  
Adventure

Duration
  

Country
  
United States

6.8/10
IMDb

Director
  
Edward Ludwig

Music director
  
Anthony Collins

Language
  
English

Swiss Family Robinson (1940 film) movie poster

Writer
  
C. Graham Baker
,
Gene Towne
,
Johann David Wyss

Release date
  
February 8, 1940 (1940-02-08)

Screenplay
  
C. Graham Baker, Walter Ferris, Gene Towne

Cast
  
Thomas Mitchell
(William Robinson),
Edna Best
(Elizabeth Robinson),
Freddie Bartholomew
(Jack Robinson),
Terry Kilburn
(Ernest Robinson),
Tim Holt
(Fritz Robinson)

Similar movies
  
Swiss Family Robinson
,
The Swiss Family Robinson
,
The New Swiss Family Robinson
,
Swiss Family Robinson

Swiss Family Robinson is a 1940 American film released by RKO Radio Pictures and directed by Edward Ludwig. It is based on the novel The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss and is the first feature-length film version of the story.

Contents

Swiss Family Robinson (1940 film) Swiss Family Robinson 1940 film Wikipedia

Plot

In London in 1813, a Swiss father, William Robinson (Thomas Mitchell), wishes to escape the influence of the superficial profligacy of London on his family. His eldest son, Fritz (Tim Holt), is obsessed with Napoleon, whom he considers his hero. His middle son, Jack (Freddie Bartholomew), is a foolish dandy who cares only about fashion and money. And his dreamy son Ernest (Terry Kilburn) is preoccupied with reading and writing to the exclusion of all else.

Swiss Family Robinson (1940 film) SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON Silent home version 1940 Part One YouTube

William Robinson sells his business and house, in order to move with his wife and four sons to Australia. They set out on a brig bound for the faraway country. Following a long voyage, the family is shipwrecked on a remote deserted island after the captain and crew are washed overboard during a storm.

Swiss Family Robinson (1940 film) Swiss Family Robinson 1940 film Alchetron the free social

The family members collaborate to create a home for themselves in the alien jungle environment. They gradually learn to use the unfamiliar plants and animals to create what they need to live and thrive. They have many adventures and challenges and make many discoveries. The mother (Edna Best), however, misses her elegant home and community in England, and wishes to somehow be rescued and return. The father slowly convinces her that living in the natural environment is better for the family and that they are meant to be there.

Upon release

Swiss Family Robinson (1940 film) Swiss Family Robinson 1940 and 1960 Classic Film Freak

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Special Effects (Vernon L. Walker, John O. Aalberg).

Frank Nugent of The New York Times wrote:

When it stays with the book, which was adventure plus instruction, the film is considerably better. The storm sequences—there are three of them—are properly noisy, drenching and spectacular. The salvage trips to the reef-bound brig, the lessons in candlemaking and ostrich-taking, the recipe for Mrs. Robinson's fish stew, some of the family's minor naturalistic adventures are amusingly, and often excitingly, depicted. They and the uniformly competent performance of the cast make it a moderately entertaining, if rather somnolently paced, story-book film.

Variety called it "a good adventure yarn" but suggested that the tropical storm sequences went on too long, and that Edna Best's hairdo seemed "always too perfect" for a believable castaway. Film Daily called it "an appealing picture for the family trade" and "a genuine accomplishment." Harrison's Reports wrote, "Pretty good entertainment ... adapted with imagination and produced with skill." John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote a mixed review, criticizing the change of the character of the mother from resourceful in the book to "fretful" and "discontented" in the film, a mood that "pervades the story and saps the vigor of the adventure element." However, Mosher thought that "Some pleasant domestic animals and a pet or two add variety," and he found the tropical storm "satisfactory."

The movie recorded a loss of $180,000.

Contemporary critics

Leonard Maltin calls the 93-minute version an "Excellent adaptation of [the] Johann Wyss book," and writes that it "boasts impressive special effects, strong performances, and much darker elements than the later Disney version."

The 1940 version is one of Oscar-winning film director James Ivory’s favorite movies. Ivory is quoted as saying that he liked the idea of the Robinsons transforming their deserted island with their London furnishings salvaged from their shipwreck, saying, "Swiss Family Robinson … appealed to my boyhood taste for disasters."

Legacy and DVD release

The story was remade in 1960 by Walt Disney. Associate producer Basil Keys stated in a December 1960 Saturday Evening Post article that Walt Disney and producer Bill Anderson chose to make their version of the film after viewing the RKO version. According to a July 1959 Los Angeles Times article, director Ken Annakin used the RKO adaptation as "an example of what not to do," that is, avoiding the 1940 film's soundstage reproductions and focusing instead on location shooting and realistic art direction.

Walt Disney is said to have bought the rights to the RKO film in an effort to suppress its re-release and avoid comparisons to his 1960 version. Currently the Walt Disney Co. holds the rights to the RKO version, and 20 minutes of it was featured in the "Vault Disney" DVD release of their 1960 Swiss Family Robinson.

Although the RKO version has not been released theatrically for decades, and no home formats from Disney were previously made commercially available, the film’s 92-minute version was briefly made available on DVD in 2010 from Turner Classic Movies, on their own "Vault Collection" DVD label, a library of "rare and forgotten" films, produced "in only small quantities and available for a limited time." A limited on-demand DVD release by Retro Flix has also been produced.

Cast

  • Thomas Mitchell as William Robinson
  • Edna Best as Elizabeth Robinson
  • Freddie Bartholomew as Jack Robinson
  • Terry Kilburn as Ernest Robinson
  • Tim Holt as Fritz Robinson
  • Bobby Quillan as Francis Robinson (credited as Baby Bobby Quillan)
  • Christian Rub as Thoren
  • John Wray as Ramsey
  • Herbert Rawlinson as Captain
  • Orson Welles as narrator (uncredited)
  • References

    Swiss Family Robinson (1940 film) Wikipedia
    Swiss Family Robinson (1940 film) IMDbSwiss Family Robinson (1940 film) Rotten TomatoesSwiss Family Robinson (1940 film) themoviedb.org