Summer classic: Swiss Family Robinson

By this time next week, the majority of Central Kentucky kids will be back in school. Hence, we give the Kentucky Theatre a good-timing award for scheduling Swiss Family Robinson as this week's Summer Classic. It shows at 1:30 and 7:15 today.

One of Disney's live-action greats, it's the big screen version Johann David Wyss' novel and it made tree houses hip for all ages.

In the film, the Swiss family of the title shipwrecks on a desert island in a storm and finds itself having to contend with tigers, anacondas and pirates, to name a few things.

The desert island theme certainly has been revisited many times since, most recently on Nim's Island, in which Abigail Breslin was the youngster communing with nature.

A 2009 remake of Swiss Family is listed on the Internet Movie Database with Terminator 3 director Jonathan Mostow designated to direct, though there's no further information. The story has actually been revisited several times, including a 1970s TV series starring Adam-12 and Route 66's Martin Milner, and featuring guest shots by Frank Langella and a pre-teen Helen Hunt. But none of those versions has replaced the original.

Comments

[Charles Edward Pogue]

A few years back, I had a deal to write a mini-series for Robert Halmi and Hallmark...one of the projects they pitched me was SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. Knowing I had to find a different way into the material than Disney had, I went back to the source material...the original novel. Boy, what a slog! A rather dull, dreary read with none of the excitement of the Disney movie. Needless to say, I passed on that suggestion and didn't do a version of Swiss Family Robinson for Hallmark.

[Bobbi's Book Nook]

The TV series was in 1975 or 76 and it starred Helen Hunt when she was just a child. I enjoyed watching this when I was younger!