Heidi

Heidi's parents are dead and her aunt takes her up the mountain. Her grandfather lives up there; he does not speak to the village and nobody goes near him. Heidi stays. Goats, milk, snow, and the old man's face gradually softening. Then the aunt comes back, takes the girl in secret and brings her to Frankfurt. There is a girl in a rich house there who cannot walk: Klara. Heidi is to be her companion. The housekeeper Fräulein Rottenmeier is against anything that disturbs the order. Heidi wants to go back to the mountain and nobody tells her grandfather. Allan Dwan directs. Shirley Temple plays Heidi and Jean Hersholt her grandfather; Marcia Mae Jones is in the cast. It is an American production, made in 1937. The source is Johanna Spyri's novel. Shirley Temple was among America's biggest earning stars at the time and this is one of her best known films. The adaptation does not keep to the novel; song and dance sections are added. In one dream sequence Heidi dances in Dutch costume and that part has nothing to do with the book. The matter it treats is a child returning an old man to society; the film says so directly. The mountain scenes were shot in a studio and look like sets. Its limit is age; the narrative is sentimental, the resolutions easy, and the ending too tidy. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Hollywood family films and Shirley Temple. Who it is not for: it is old, the emotional dose high, and the ending easy.