My Side
of the Mountain

(1969) color 99 minutes
Paramount Pictures
Story: Jean Craighead George (from her novel)
Screenplay: Joanna Crawford, Jean George, Jane Klove, Ted Sherdeman
Music: Wilfred Josephs
Cinematography: Denys N. Coop
Produced by Robert B. Radnitz
Directed by James B. Clark

With: Ted Eccles (Sam), Theodore Bikel (Bando), Trudi Wiggins (Miss Turner), Paul Hébert (Hunter)

Plot Outline: A young boy tries to eke out an existance in the wilderness.

***

MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN is yet another attempt to crack the rock-hard Disney nut of enduring wildlife/nature films for children. Ted Eccles is amusing as a nerdy nature-boy who can't stand modern life, so he runs away to the woods, Thoureau-like, to make a life as a hermit.

Trouble is, his purposeful, deliberate, overannunciated voice makes him sound like one of the gee-whiz kid narrators of 1950's educational science films. And for a guy who seeks solitude, he sure talks alot!

All goes well until he kills a deer for its hide, and proves himself to be just another predatory pig male! Oink! Ted eventually meets a burly mountain man, and the DELIVERANCE-style homoerotic references are bountiful and embarrassing, possible only in a film from an earlier, more innocent time. (For instance, yhey both sit around the campfire, smiling at each other while blowing their flutes.)

After the lad builds an impossible fireplace out of mud, looking like something out of a Levitz showroom, we know that his struggle, and this film, are preposterous.

There are many odd scenes here: Ted gets lonely, goes into town and gets mocked by teens in leisure suits; Ted befriends a falcon but it is killed by hunters; Ted almost dies in a blizzard but is rescued by the mountain man and a kindly lesbian librarian.

Preposterous.

But why does this film remind me of HAROLD & MAUDE and MIDNIGHT COWBOY? Is it the idea of a new-age male journey, or the bus taking him to paradise, or the late-60's landscapes, or that all these films are anti-establishment in theme, or just because all the male protagonists are running away from a stifling existence? 1969, year of the male escape fantasy.

Producer Radnitz, responsible for many nature films for kids, such as ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS, soon hit the bigtime with 1972's SOUNDER.

Video/DVD availability: VHS (MGM/UA)