My Side of the Mountain (1969) Online

I saw this movie when i was a kid and thought it was wonderful. i must have been about 12 or 14. It made me want to eat algae pancakes. I think it had a good lesson, and remember it made me appreciate the mountains. maybe the acting isn't all that great, but it is a Good kid movie. i don't remember why the title was my side of the mountain but i have thought about it over the years and i am 42 now so it must have had an impact on me to last this long. with all the bad movies they make for kids these days i don't think you can go wrong with this one. if you go into it with low expectations you may find that is was much better than you thought it would be.

If you're looking for good clean adventure, it's here.

The relationship between the boy and 'his' mountain, the animals, and the other people is well portrayed and thought provoking. I found it amusing that even in the middle of nowhere he kept a journal - proof that he was not running from the benefits of civilization just the 'boxed in' feeling. His parents' choices are also noteworthy. I started out not thinking too much of them and changing my mind by the end.

How often we live in our own little worlds and think we have all there is. There's so much more out there! I loved it as a kid and still enjoy it as an adult. I look forward to watching it with my kids.

I saw this movie as a child with my family, my mother being the most enthusiastic as it was filmed in Sutton QC, where she grew up. Back then, I thought the idea of going into the mountains and living in one's own treehouse was a fabulous idea!

The familiar scenery of the Green Mountains of southern Québec was breathtaking on the big screen. My mother pointed out the scene where Teddy Eccles' character, Sam, goes to the library in Knowlton, a library she had been to many times.

I understand Eccles attended and signed the guestbook of Olivet Baptist Church in Sutton, the church where my mother grew up.

Certainly, every kid has a dream of some adventure independent of parents and this movie helped me live mine a little.

"My Side of the Mountain" is an entertaining family film that I enjoyed both as a teenager and as an adult.

The movie has adventure and a sense of wonder in its portrayal of a young boy intent on making his way alone in the wilderness. The lead character, Sam, does sometimes overact and can get on one's nerves, but the supporting cast--human, mammalian, and avian--keeps the film interesting and prevents Sam from become too overbearing. Kids can learn lessons on self-reliance and interdependence from the film, in addition to enjoying San's adventures and the beautiful scenery of the Laurentian Mountains.

This is a wonderful and insightful film. After being told by his father, that the trip to the Mountains in Montana is being cancelled-he decides to run away from home and go to the mountains by himself.

This film would be boring except for one thing- this film is narrated by the boy, Sam (Ted Eccles). throughout the entire film, we get to listen into his thoughts or what he is writing in his journal. Ted Eccles does a GREAT job narrating this film.

The nature scenes are wonderful. After seeing this film, I have a greater appreciation for nature. Sam's ability to interact with other animals (Including his pet raccoon) is remarkable.

I recommend this film for everyone. It will make you think, it will awe-inspire you. You will also learn a new recipe for pancakes and syrup. This film is not to be missed!

My Side of the Mountain made a huge impression on me when I was a kid, so much so that I still remember most of the details, although I have not seen it in about thirty years. It is based on the novel of the same name by Jean George, and is reasonably faithful to it. What I liked best as a kid is that My Side of the Mountain was so unlike the cutesy, syrupy kid flicks of the time. I mean Disney and all the Disney wannabes, with their adorable moppets and idiotic plots. The protagonist, Sam, actually has a brain. Although he's not larger-than-life, he's certainly one of a kind. I envied him. I spent endless days alone in the forest myself when I was his age, watching nature and enjoying my own company. I would leave right after breakfast and return home only as dark was falling. It was considered usual behavior at the time, but not dangerous. Few modern kids will ever have such experiences - what a pity! Watching My Side of the Mountain would be a terrific way to get a taste of it, however. Parents everywhere should rent this rather obscure little gem.

I just showed this movie to my 5 year old granddaughter and she loved it. The raccoon caught her interest right away and everything Sam did fascinated her. When Sam caught Frightful she was in awe! She especially loved Bando and how he helped teach Sam a few things. When he made the recorder for Sam and the two of them played together, my granddaughter was most delighted since I had recently given her one of her own to learn to play. This movie has always been one my favorites from my childhood. Now it has become my granddaughters favorite. She wants to watch it over and over again. I hope the actors know that their work in this movie is still loved by children. My thanks to them for this wonderful movie! Dee Thompson Pe Ell, Washington

I saw this movie when it first came out. It's about Sam. A boy who runs away from home when he finds out that his family's summer trip has been cancelled. So he heads for the Catskill Mountains. It's there that he learns how to survive with the help of several wild animals including a ferret and a Peregrine falcon. During his year in the wilderness, he learns about himself. He learns that he can't run away from his problems and the only way to handle them is to face them. I read the book when I was ten. It was published the year I was born. It was close to, if not faithful to, Jean Craighead George's book, because she worked on the script. Unlike today's movies, where the author sells the rights, and is cut out of the loop by the studios. Things were different back in 1969. What do I have to say to anyone who wants to see this movie? Read the book. Then see the movie.

Unbelievable! I seen this movie when I was 5 years old. I am 44 now. Since the movie, I did all sorts of similar things. I build tree forts, hiked around lakes and tinkered near the ponds and lakes of South Dakota. I've trapped small animals as a 7-12 yr old including noosing gophers and small rabbits. I eventually joined the US Marines as a 20 year old and now I am involved in teaching a Jungle Survival and Leadership Course five or six times a year in the Philippines. This movie created such a LASTING IMPRESSION on my innocent spirit I nearly became like the kid in the movie. My life has been a very fulfilling, independent and satisfying experience/journey. I just came across the DVD again after over 39 years and showed it to my kids. SO many great memories have come back to me during watching the movie again. One of the best movies ever made. Mitch

I have had this film etched upon my memory ever since I saw it around 35 years ago as a 7/ 8 year old in cinema in North London. I have never seen it since, but I remember, rather like the solitude of the boy in the film, being left at the cinema by my mother and then picked up outside long after the film had finished - this was a different era after all, kids were given much more freedom to roam then. So being apart from my family helped me get into the character of the boy completely and I guess I just zoned out of myself onto the boy on the screen. It all seems like some beautiful dream of a long gone and innocent world that sort of tapped into the hippie consciousness of the time. I would love to get a copy of this somewhere so my own children can see it.

James B. Clark directed this film, an adaptation of the Jean George novel that stars Ted Eccles as a 13 year-old boy and nature enthusiast who decides to live out in the Canadian wilderness for the winter(he loves the poetry of Henry David Thoreau) He comes equipped with the knowledge, tools, and determination he thinks he'll need to achieve this goal, building shelter out of an old tree stump, which he will become trapped in when a big snowstorm hits. He also befriends a traveling musician named Bando(played by Theodore Bikel). Intelligent and inspiring film about a most unusual yet remarkable young man. True, his parents must have been terribly worried about him(despite his note), but that's a minor quibble in such fine family entertainment, with some sad moments as well(his poor falcon...) Underrated gem deserves to be better known(and I imagine Sam returned to the wilderness when he got older; at least I hope so!)

This film will mean a lot to children of a certain age, particularly boys. It's not really an adventure story, but it is 'boy runs away from family' story done in the old Disney style- that is, you never reall feel that he's in serious danger, and you learn a lot about nature and love along the way. Worthwhile.

First, I'm approaching this movie from the standpoint of someone who never read the book on which it was based. Some have said that the movie is a poor adaptation and perhaps it is; my opinions are based on the movie itself.

(If I were to think of a poor movie adaptation of any story it would be The Missouri Traveler' which left so much of the book out of the story, it's entire point was missed in the film.)

Anyhow - I was in 7th or 8th grade when my class got our weekly 'Scope' students' magazine and I remember reading an article in it about the production of this movie. It only took me about 49 years to get around to seeing it when it came on TCM.

My hopes weren't high when I saw that the young star of the movie, Ted Eccles, was the same youngster who played Milburn Drysdale's scheming brat nephew on the Beverly Hillbillies. In the one or two appearances he made there, he managed to swindle the Clampetts out of valuable works of art, buying them up for a few dollars. Seeing that brat kid as the lead in this movie, I wasn't sure if it would be at all believable.

But - it was. This was one smart, determined, and resilient young man (Sam) as portrayed in the film. He set about his purpose of being alone on the mountain without a shadow of doubt - he had a 'can do' attitude and he did what needed to be done. I expect that 150 years ago there were boys as self-sufficient as Sam was. I have to admit that it made me sad to see his pet falcon Frightful get shot and killed by the hunter; I wish on his way off the mountain at the end of the film, he'd have found the place where he'd buried her and stopped to say goodbye. That was the only thing missing from the end of the movie for me.

This movie was some really good escapism. An adventurous kid would really 'get lost' in the story, and the idea of doing such a solo adventure. Again, I can't compare to the book which almost certainly would have been better, but still, I think the movie judged on its own was well worth the watching.

I have to admit I have not seen this movie in 25 years, the fact I remember it from when I was about 10 years of age says something. In todays day and age this movie would frighten parents, to ride a bike you need a helmet (it's a law here now!) taking off for the day and only calling home when it's well after dark is unthinkable now. Yet I did these things and there was no controversy over it then. Yet this Movie I admit is extreme. This boy (Sam) leaves a note for his parents and makes for the mountains spends months up there in winter conditions and handles it all really well. This Story is unbelievable and unimaginable today, and probably is. Children are so sheltered today I doubt there is more then 1-500,000 kids who could pull it off now, but back then 1-200 could do just as this kid did. Survival, common sense, true bravery, self sufficient, and healthy. Today a kid would need to be a boy scout, and have been raised buy a hunter father, and i'm not talking about those guys who go out for a day, only to step out of there truck walk ten feet to bag there trophy. I respected Sam a ton, and I knew it would have been very tough to do what he did but I knew even then that it could be done. I couldn't have pulled it off at 10, but at 12 I knew I could, largely because Sam made me wanna learn to be that self sufficient.

SPOILERS

It may be a bit bland, but this is a great early children movie that everyone should probably see at least once in their lifetime. There are a lot of differences from this movie from the My Side Of The Mountain novel. For starters, the falcon does not die is the novel, and guess what happens to the falcon in the movie? What do you know? It dies! How unpredictable. Anyway, enough of the sarcasm, if you can call it sarcasm. This is an enjoyable children movie for anybody, so really, it is not a children movie.

Here is the plot. A boy named Sam leaves his home with his pet raccoon and goes out to the wilderness, mountains, to be exact, to study algae. He has to try to survive out in the wilderness. On his journey he meets a musician, he finds and raises a falcon, and he gets snowed in from inside a tree. Then his falcon named Frightful is killed by a careless hunter. The boy continues to try to survive and he meets a librarian on his way again. In the end of the movie he returns back to his house.

Overall, there is a lot more things that happen to Sam along the way. I can not remember all of it. This is a fun wilderness movie. I also like the montage of the thoughts of the words "Symbolic relationship," and "Next summer," going through Sam's head as he finishes his daily wilderness routine. It was creepy and very unsettling. Anyway, this is a nice and emotional romp about a boy who leaves homer to study algae. There are hardships through the way, but the boy makes it. Why I am giving the summary of the movie again is anybody's guess.

7/10

Recommended Films: The Yearling.

Sam Gribley (Teddy Eccles), a brilliant child, leaves home for the mountains after being told that the family summer trip has been canceled, thus preventing him from doing the algae experiments he had planned for that summer. The film chronicles his struggle for independence, and with the forces of natures.

Ted Bikel said in his autobiography, "What was unusual about this production was that they asked me not only to sing and play, but to write the songs as well." Other than the lead actor, Bikel's character of Bando is the most memorable, and unusual. The whole story in general is unusual in how lightly the adults have taken a child who runs away from home.

Not to knock the movie, because I enjoyed it greatly, but I wonder if it inspired other children to run away from home. Sam has a pretty easy time of training a falcon, eating wild plants and surviving the weather. I think it far more likely he would have starved and gotten sick several times. That may not be a family-friendly story, but it would be more likely.

This movie is very close to home for me. It was filmed in my hometown of Knowlton. Matter of fact, the library in the film is the same place where I got my smallpox vaccination! Remember it like it was yesterday ;) My grandfather was contracted as driver where he would pick up animals used in the film at the airport in Montreal. Good times. Knowlton was not very well known back then but it's a great substitute for small US towns found in the eastern states like Maine (which is only 20 minutes away). My father who was a volunteer fireman in the early 70s worked on the set of "The little girl how lives down the lane" with Jodie Foster. He made rain for the set during the house scene. I was only 6 at the time but I have great stories!!

Corny but enjoyable nature story about a young boy who decides to run away from his life in the city to live in the woods for a year like Thoreau. If you can get past the premise that there are 12-year olds out there who are into Thoreau, the film is compulsively watchable as we watch the boy learn how to make shelter, find food, train a falcon, and other survival skills to live off the fatted land. This is the film's main charm because the rest of the film was awfully trite, such as the boy visiting town and being teased by locals, or the kindly librarian who helps him research wildness skills, or his a friendship with a folk singing also living in with woods. However, most anytime a film shows someone making or learning something, it grabs an audience and is interesting to watch, whether it's Rocky chasing chickens to train for his big fight or Freddy Krueger building his clawed glove to do what he does, this is a filmmaker trick for sucking an audience in that always seems to work. Remember those Mr. Rogers segments where he show how crayons or boxes get made? Those are just inarguably fascinating to watch, but I digress. Overall, "My Side of the Mountain" could easily have been a Disney nature film, though less silly and cutsy than Disney, and if that sounds like a good thing to you, you'd probably enjoy this film.

This movie was one of the first movies I ever remember seeing as a kid. Viewed it on one of the most state-of-the-art big screens in the 60's. Yeah, it was a very impressive film for a kid my age (10). Based on a book that came out the year I was born.

I just saw the movie again (47 years later) on Netflix and I am stunned to realize how much it changed my life. I was a runaway in Seattle (1976), although for me it was more about running into future opportunity rather than running away from past problems. I learned from this movie. Challenging to live on my own at age 16 in the big world. I now live my life on the side of a mountain... quite happily I might add. Never quite understood how I began to 'think outside the box', but this film is all about thinking outside the box. It's a revolutionary concept of independence... no cell phone, indeed, the kid is not depending on other people, parents, or government to solve his problems. The kid is really arrogant, but hey, he's 12 years old. How many 12 year olds today would try this? Imagine a world where kids decided they wanted to take responsibility for their choices.

If you can get past the errors of the script and arrogance of the kid (that's why I gave it a 7)... this film really has got something to offer most everyone.

The book is wonderfully written. This adaptation of a Jean Craighead George classic leaves some things to be desired. Poor Frightful, Sam's peregrine, starts out as a pheasant on cliffs as a baby and ends up being portrayed by a prairie falcon for the rest of the movie. The book takes place in New York City and the Catskill Mountains. They've moved it to Toronto for some reason. They've also missed the whole point of the book when Sam leaves from his family in a huff and returns simply because it is time. What lesson is to be learned from this movie. The book was warm and rich with life lessons. You miss that in the film. I enjoyed watching this movie, but wish they would have remained truer to the original. The Craigheads were a wonderful family whose adventures were immortalized through her wonderful books. Let's try it again, film makers, and this time let's get it right.

I kinda liked this movie, but after reading how fabulous the book is and how horrible the movie was (not that bad)...it made me want to run out and get the book...

I agree with the other reviewer about the death of the falcon and then awkward ending...could have been done better...being a parent, I would like to have seen their reaction and how that relationship developed...

Rented this movie at the library, so no change out of my pocket...think I'll look for the book used also...

:)

I hardly know where to begin.

Huge continuity issues, bad acting, etc. For example, Sam is supposed to be far from any people yet you can see the ski slopes cut into the mountain next to his head.

But the most fundamental problem is that the essence of the book, Sam's adventurousness paving the way to improve the lot of his entire family, is not even touched upon. Instead, in the movie, he gets ticked off at his family and leaves his wealthy parents to be by himself and, when he gets tired of it, he goes home. Where is his development? Where is the arc?

If you have never read the book and can get through the hokey 60isms (double/triple/quadruple visions of the falcon) and terrible production quality (crackling, ahem, fire, winter winds stopping their howling for the dialog and then restarting, etc.) I guess it *might* be OK for an 8 year old.

But compared to the sophistication of the book it is a terrible disappointment.

Read the book instead.

A cornball city kid (Ted Eccles) with a thing for algae runs away from home to live alone in the Canadian wilderness. He actually has it pretty good out there. He is never sick or hurt, has no issues with bugs, is never attacked by wild animals, and doesn't even get dirty. He lives in harmony with nature like something out of a Disney cartoon. The only danger comes from hunters. He makes a trip to the nearest town, where he reads a book in a library about how to trap a falcon and train it. Which he then, of course, does. Absurd! Don't even get me started on the flute-playing weirdo (Theodore Bikel) who shows up and spends the summer with the kid eating algae pancakes. It's a totally unrealistic movie but not bad as a wish fulfillment fantasy for kids, I guess.

Another of the many movies that came out in the '60s & '70s with a "get back to nature" theme. If nothing else, these movies usually had lots of beautiful nature footage. This one's no exception. As a kid I often thought about doing what this boy does (minus the algae obsession). If I had seen this movie I might even have been stupid enough to try it.

The movie isn't too bad, up until...

The main problem is with the ending, so it's a pretty major spoiler...

For the time it was made, it's a beautiful movie, and does get a lot of it right.

However...

In the book, Sam succeeds and lives his dream, whereas in the movie, he gives up and goes back to the city, completely destroying the "you can do what you put your mind to" theme of the book.

This movie is a desecration, and instead of remaking classics that don't need redone, the Hollywood types who haven't any better ideas should do this one, right this time.

This movie is one of the poorest adaptations of a fabulous book that I've seen. Jean George's novel is a fantastic book that I think is an outstanding read for any child. I can't give the same endorsement to this movie.