A Gift for Heidi

Unhappily the print I saw of this movie had gone soft and scratchy. Even with that discounted, this is a peculiar production. The juvenile leads -- Sandy Descher as Heidi and Van Dyke Parks as Peter -- are a touch slow and unnatural, both in their movements and line readings. It's as if the director did not quite understand how to handle American child actors and the script has been reduced to almost telegraphic indications of the individual incidents.

On top of that, it has to contend with two very powerful memories: the Shirley Temple version and the fact that my mother read the book to me when I was sick as a child: she loved the book so much, she named my sister Heidi. It's hard for any film to measure up to those standards.

Nonetheless, some real effort was made, and a lot of the outdoors scenes were shot in the Bavarian Alps. So that's something to keep your interest up. Alas, it is not enough to make this worthwhile.