Swiss Family Robinson (film)

Swiss Family Robinson is a 1960 American Technicolor feature film starring John Mills, Dorothy McGuire, and Sessue Hayakawa in a tale of a shipwrecked family building an island home.Variety film review; November 9, 1960, page 6.Harrison's Reports film review; November 12, 1960, page 183. The screenplay by Lowell S. Hawley was loosely based upon the 1812 novel Der Schweizerische Robinson (literally, The Swiss Robinson) by Johann David Wyss. The film was directed by Ken Annakin, shot in Tobago. It was the second feature film version of the story (the first film version was released by RKO in 1940) and was a commercial success.

Swiss Family Robinson was one of the rare wide screen Disney films shot with Panavision lenses. When shooting in wide screen, Disney had nearly always used a matte wide screen or filmed the movie in CinemaScope.

Plot

A family on their way to New Guinea is chased by pirates into a storm. The captain and crew abandon the ship leaving the family shipwrecked off an uninhabited island. Father (John Mills) and his two eldest sons Fritz and Ernst (James MacArthur and Tommy Kirk) salvage as much as they can from the wreck including livestock, tools, and even an organ. While on the ship, gathering what can be removed, the pirates return and begin shooting at the ship. Fritz and Ernst begin readying the ship's cannon, but they only have one shot. Suddenly, the pirates turn around; Father has put up a flag indicating...
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