Customer Reviews

Courage Mountain: Heidi's New Adventure

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Courage Mountain is a truly wonderful movie. The viewer falls in love with Heidi all over again. Heidi is no longer the little girl we all know. She is now a teenager. As Heidi goes off to bording school in Italy, she is sad to leave her Grandfather and love intrest Peter behind. As World War I erupts around them, Heidi and her schoolmates are place in an Orphanage where the crule overseers force them to do hard manual labor. One day, they escape and decide to cross the Alps to Heidi's Grandfathers house. The Orphanage overseer is determined not to let them reach their destination. Courage Mountian is filled with excitment, adventure and love. A five star movie that you must see!!

While not officially adapted from any of the original "Heidi" stories by Johanna Spyri, COURAGE MOUNTAIN takes the original characters into the dark days of WWI, with an adventure filled with thrills and intrigues.

An adolescent Heidi (played by Juliette Caton) leaves her home in the Alps to attend a private girls' boarding-school in Italy. She soon finds herself at odds with the aristocratic girls, but endears herself to kindly headmistress Miss Hillary (Leslie Caron). When the school is claimed as a barracks for the Italian Army, most of the girls are sent home; but unable to contact Heidi's grandfather, Miss Hillary reluctantly sends Heidi and a small group of the girls into the care of a local orphanage, run by the sadistic Signor Bonelli (Yorgo Voyagis) and his wife (Laura Betti).

Heidi and the girls stage a daring escape, and decide the only way home is across the mountains...with Bonelli in close pursuit. COURAGE MOUNTAIN is filled with enough drama, thrills and adventure to dazzle any audience. Leslie Caron delivers a strong performance as the staunch headmistress; and Juliette Caton is a believably-rustic Heidi.

The cast also includes Charlie Sheen as Peter and Jan Rubes as Grandfather; with Nicola Stapleton, Joanna Clarke, Kathryn Ludlow and Jade Magri. (Single-sided, single-layer disc).

This movie of Heidi is a real treat for any one wanting to see a film full of family love and love for others, courage and good ole fashioned morality. From the very beginning to the end you'll be sitting on the edge of your seat waiting to see what happens next. We like the movie so much we are going to buy it for our own home library. Heidi shows such love for every one it stirs ones heart. The right wins over the bad in this film.

I ordered Courage Mountain thinking it was going to be starring a Hiedi who was sweet and fresh, as the little girl was. I must say I was pretty dissapointed with the whole movie. I thought it was not written the best and that "They" could have made it much more wholesome. Perhaps you'd think I'm too old fashioned, but I just didn't care for this movie much and decided to discard my copy.

This film-a continuation of Johanna Spyri's Heidi- is a wonderful film which tells of Heidi going to an Italian boarding school on the eve of WW1.The school is disbanded when the Italian army claims the school as Military Headquarters.Heidi is sent to an orphanage because she cannot get word to her Grandfather,and she escapes over the border and across the Alps with the sadistic orphanage master on her trail. A breathtaking adventure with Leslie Caron as the School Headmistress and Juliette Caton as the teenaged Heidi. Also with Nicola Stapleton and Laura Betti.

I saw this movie on the Disney Channel in the 1980s. It's a made for TV sequel to Heidi. Heidi is now in her late teens. She goes off to Italy to a girls school. While there, World War I starts. Heidi and her friends must make a dangerous journey across the mountains to get to the safety of her home in Switzerland.

Heidi is a childhood fav. and courage mountain is a nice addition, it lets you make assumptions about Heidi and peter having a future together and I thought that was a great note to end on.

I ordered Courage Mountain I recieved in within the days set and it was in great condition as listed when I ordered I would order from them again.

I'll begin with the caveat that, since I am of mature years, I may see this quite differently than would a child or adolescent. Heidi, in any incarnation, is adaptable and a survivor, and perhaps the very young may find this an encouraging film, or even see thrilling moments in the war sequences.

As for myself - since Johanna Spyri's original always has been a great favourite of mine, I watched this film for something of a visit with old friends. Save for a brief sequence where Grandfather speaks with the headmistress, which indeed captured how Heidi had beautifully influenced his life, I met a cast of strangers. This Heidi, from the outset, is a rather remote, melancholy sort. Peter, whom readers know well as a simpleton, is a clever young man in the military - I dare-say that the original Peter, who thought it impossible to learn to read at age 12, had best not end up commanding any regiments.

Despite the loose, generally valid connections to World War I events, the plot is exceedingly melodramatic. The tragic elements of the war should have been sufficient in themselves if one wishes to craft tales of courage, but several wicked characters (not historical, but more out of the darker of Grimm's fairy tales in their manner) draw away attention from the genuine events which could have been intriguing. The escape over the mountain, undoubtedly intended to show Heidi as heroine, are utterly implausible - walking from Italy to the Alm would be a feat indeed, even if one had a warm coat and boots, and Heidi's assurance that the crowd of girls can 'go anywhere a goat can' makes one wonder to just what heroic endeavours Schwanli and Barli are drawn. What I would imagine are intended to be the most powerful scenes drown in caricature. Those who run the 'orphanage' (and would practically make Oliver Twist's days in the workhouse seem a holiday) are so over-stated that the horrors of the first war with more developed technology seems to fade into the background.

In the original, the refreshingly independent, positive Heidi, who fully has her wits about her even at age 5, is delightful in the eyes of everyone except Fraulein Rottenmeier. The Heidi of Courage Mountain, from the beginning, seems a study in depression. Though the element of the country girl in the urban setting (also explored in the book) rings true, and the haughty cruelty of children is no myth, this dreary Heidi hardly seems a likeable companion. She has none of the positive attitude that the book shows as a deep influence of joy and faith on others.

It indeed is acceptable 'family fare,' if one's concerns are only the ultimate triumph of the good (against the story-book goblin, not military foes) and no offensive material. But I was sorry to see a truly classic character such as Heidi, who would provide great potential for a sequel, to drown in resigned seas (or snow drifts) of melodrama.

A must see for children or adults. It has something for everyone, with a mixture of adventure and a little bit of romance. I would definitely recommend watching it.