Review: Swiss Family Robinson (1960) (DMC #33)
Last night we watched the 33rd film in the Disnerd Movie Challenge, Swiss Family Robinson! Anyone else wishing they could quarantine in their epic tree house? If you watched with us last night, feel free to skip our synopsis and go straight to our review.
Synopsis
A Swiss family (the Robinsons) tries to escape Napoleon’s reign and head for New Guinea to start a new life there. But after a terrible storm and being chased by pirates, the Robinson family find themselves shipwrecked near a small island with no sign of the ship’s crew. They create a raft from the debris of the ship and manage to sail ashore and erect a temporary shelter. While collecting another batch of supplies and all the livestock from the shipwreck the next day, Father and the boys, Fritz and Ernst, spot a pirate ship—the same one that chased them into the storm. Though the pirates fire on them, Father quickly scares them off by hoisting a quarantine flag which means there’s illness on board. Back on shore, the youngest boy, Francis, tries to capture a baby elephant and is nearly attacked by a tiger until the dogs come to his rescue. The family begins building a treehouse where they will be safe from the tiger and other wild animals, but when Francis nearly falls from the tree Mother insists she and Francis will live on the ground until the treehouse is finished being built. Once the treehouse is built everything seems to be going well, and the family is enjoying themselves, but Mother is worried there is no future for her boys here because there are no women for them to marry. Father convinces Mother to let Fritz and Ernst sail around the island to see what they can learn about it.
While Fritz and Ernst are sailing around the island, they discover a small fleet of pirate ships and a group of pirates on the shore with two captives: an older man who appears to be a captain, and his grandson named Bertie. While the brothers try to rescue the captives, they’re spotted by the pirates and only manage to rescue Bertie. The three manage to outrun the pirates while stealing a pistol from one of them. When they come to a river crossing on their way back to the treehouse, Bertie refuses to undress in order to cross and steals the pistol from Ernst, threatening to shoot him, while Fritz wrestles Bertie to the ground. Only then do the boys realize that “Bertie” is “Roberta”—she was posing as a boy to escape the pirates. The boys quickly change their tune and help Roberta cross the river. Further down the river, Fritz is attacked by an anaconda. While the boys manage to kill it, Ernst loses his compass. Fritz insists on leading without the compass, and gets the group lost. They argue about which way to continue but Fritz wins out. They rescue a zebra trapped in a mud pit and have Roberta ride it the rest of the way. Back at the treehouse, Mother, Father, and Francis are celebrating Christmas and wondering what happened to the boys when Fritz, Ernst, and Roberta arrive.
While the men make a plan to defend against the pirates, Mother has Roberta try on one of her dresses. When the women rejoin the men, Fritz and Ernst compete for the chance to dance with Roberta until Father steps in and claims Roberta as his dance partner. The next day the family blows up the shipwreck to conceal their location, and sets up traps, alarms, and ammunition for when the pirates arrive. Francis sets a trap for a tiger to use against the pirates. While Fritz and Ernst continue to compete for Roberta’s affections, it becomes clear that she favors Fritz when she asks him to teach her how to shoot, even though she already knows how. After yet another fight between Fritz and Ernst, Father declares the first national holiday on the island to shift morale. While preparing for the holiday, the tiger falls into Francis’s trap, which they convert into a tiger pit to catch pirates. The next day while the family competes in a crazy animal race, Roberta’s zebra runs off course and takes her to the beach where she spots the pirates. She hurries back to alert the family who take their places up on the hill. As the pirates approach, they’re caught by the various traps set by the family including a dropped bridge, automated arrows, explosions, pits, a rockslide, coconut bombs, rolling logs, and the tiger pit. The pirate leader raises a white flag and asks for “the boy” (meaning Roberta). Roberta considers giving herself up to save the family, but Fritz tells her not to. Francis’s pirate alarm goes off behind them and the family quickly begins firing on the pirates trying to ambush them. The pirates retreat at the sound of cannons from Roberta’s grandfather’s ships, and the family heads for the beach to welcome Roberta’s grandfather and his crew. Mother, Father, Francis, Fritz, and Roberta decide to stay on the island, while Ernst decides to head back to London with Roberta’s grandfather to study at the university.
Thoughts Before Watching
Megan: I don’t really know much about Swiss Family Robinson aside from the treehouse attractions at Disneyland (eventually redesigned as Tarzan’s Treehouse) and Disney World (which still retains the Swiss Family Treehouse theme). I’ve never read the book, either, so this is entirely new to me. Here’s hoping it’s a good one!
Kevin: I’m in the same boat. I vaguely remember hearing some backlash over Disney’s choice to re-theme the Swiss Family Treehouse to Tarzan’s Treehouse, but it was never something that bothered me. My parents have both seen this and I know they enjoyed it, so I’m curious about what I come away with.
Thoughts After Watching
Sexism on full display
Megan: While I’ve come to expect these older films to have some sexist viewpoints, I have to admit I was a bit shocked at how incredibly sexist this movie is. Since I haven’t read the source material, it’s hard to say which sexist ideas were carried over from the book and which were the result of the filmmakers’ choices. However, in either case it’s clear that this story was created by men with a very narrow view of women’s capabilities, personalities, or experiences.
Megan: The film just barely passes the Bechdel test thanks to the one and only scene in the entire film where Mother and Roberta are alone together as they find a suitable dress for Roberta to wear. The two talk about how brave Mother had to be to leave her home, and how much Mother always wanted a daughter. Yet, at the same time, this scene between the two women is still constrained within very narrow views of gender roles. Mother wanted a daughter she could “dress up, make clothes for”—essentially a life-size doll, rather than a daughter she could love and have a relationship with. Roberta, who before now had been wearing ‘boy’s” pants—far more practical for moving through the wild terrain of the island—is suddenly put into a frilly pink dress, seemingly fulfilling Mother’s wish. This wouldn’t necessarily be a terrible thing, since Roberta seems to love the dress, but a few scenes later it’s clear that the dress was a tool to make her more attractive to the Robinson boys, who begin to fight over who gets to dance with her. Their fighting leads Mother to regretfully remark that perhaps she should have left that dress in the bottom of her trunk.
“Helpless” Females: Mother
Megan: From the moment we meet Mother, her primary character trait can be summed up in one word: helpless. She needs the help of her husband and sons to get off the wreckage and onto a raft, and even then she falls into the water. When they make camp, she’s terribly frightened by the large lizard she finds in their makeshift tent. When the treehouse is in the early stages of construction, she needs help up into the house and is terrified by the heights and the lack of railings. When the house is finished, she is blindfolded and guided by her husband and sons to the finished treehouse. She can’t even have fun at the waterfall—she sits primly with her pink parasol as her husband and sons swing from vines and slide down a natural water slide. The only “productive” thing we see her do to contribute to the family’s survival is looking after their youngest son, Francis (though she fails several times at this), cooking, and decorating the treehouse interior (though that’s not exactly linked to their survival). While Mother does manage to shoot a pirate during the final battle, she does so while backing away in fear, and we get the sense that it was merely luck or proximity that she actually made the shot in the first place. Mother’s roles within the family seem limited to spiritual guide (she’s the one who says they must pray first before building shelter), safety inspector (she questions the safety of the treehouse and of her two sons’ sailing journey around the island), and domestic worker (cooking, cleaning, making or providing clothes, and caring for children). While her quick-thinking with the rope saved Francis from what could have been a nasty fall, it’s hard to say whether or not her contributions truly contributed to the family’s survival.
Kevin: The actress, Dorothy McGuire, played another mother role in Old Yeller (which also starred Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran; it’s amusing that Disney recast a lot of the same actors/actresses in similar roles). What’s unfortunate is how her role in that movie compares to her role here. In Old Yeller, Katie Coates is a much more active character. While her son does more of the animal herding and hunting, McGuire’s character is no stranger to getting her hands dirty and dealing with unpleasant situations. Even though Travis is implored by his father to “be the man of the house” while he’s gone, Katie is more decisive and takes a distinctive role as the leader of the home. She does her share of the hard labor, and jumps right into dealing with dangerous situations by tending to Yeller when he’s injured, or saving Arliss just as he’s about to be attacked by the rabid Yeller. She was also the one who intended to kill Yeller and put him out of his misery until Travis said that it should be him to do it. The character could not be more different from Mother in Swiss Family Robinson. Differences are fine, but what’s really problematic is it appears to be the result of terrible writing and not style. I looked up some info on the actual Swiss Family Robinson book, and apparently it is the mother who comes up with the idea of building the treehouse. The movie takes this idea from the woman and gives it directly to the man, robbing Mother of one of her best contributions. If this fact is true, it’s clear that Disney did this because of Hollywood’s male-centric views, and it’s no less awful. Katie Coates and Mother, though both played by the same actress, are written very differently and it’s baffling.
“Helpless” Females: Roberta
Megan: Roberta’s character presents another quandary, because she seems to fluctuate between capable and helpless throughout the film. When we first meet her she’s mistaken for a boy (even though it’s clear to the audience that she’s a girl). When she is “Bertie,” the pirate men and the Robinson boys don’t treat her like some delicate flower. They expect more of her simply because they see her as male, and males are never helpless. Even her grandfather, who knows she’s a woman, seems to give her a bit more credit given the situation they’re in. However, the second the Robinson boys realize Bertie is really Roberta, they instantly change their tune. Nowhere is this in greater contrast than the scene at the waterfall. Before the reveal, the boys had been relentlessly pushing Bertie to continue onward in spite of a leg injury, with an argument culminating in Ernst using a slingshot to fire rocks at Bertie, and Fritz physically assaulting Bertie in a wrestling match where Bertie was pinned to the rock. The second Fritz realizes Bertie is a girl, however, he immediately gets up and lets her free, and the two brothers offer Roberta their hands to help her across the rocks and the river.
Megan: I found this whole scene to be both confusing and problematic. Here is a brave woman who does whatever she can to hide her gender, because she knows how dangerous it is in this world. If the pirates had discovered she was a woman, the unspoken insinuation is they would have raped her. It can be guessed that she continues the charade with the Robinson brothers for the same reason—she doesn’t know them, and cannot trust their motives. When the brothers tell her to take off her clothes so they stay dry while crossing the river, the risk of revealing her gender is too great, so she instead steals Ernst’s pistol. She even fires the pistol at Ernst when he won’t stop launching rocks at her. Yet Bertie’s bravery seems to die the second she’s revealed as Roberta. She immediately cries, and transforms into a helpless female who needs to be gently escorted through the wilderness. When they encounter the anaconda in the river, Roberta is again helpless, clinging to a tree while the brothers attack the snake. Where is the girl who just moments earlier was firing a pistol? Why isn’t she helping fight off the snake? Also, it is only now that Roberta is seen as female that the boys find an alternate solution so she doesn’t have to continue walking on an injured leg. (Though I’ll add that it’s unclear if she is truly injured or just sore from all the walking.) Later we discover Roberta knows how to shoot a rifle, and she does it well—she merely asks Fritz for instruction as an excuse to flirt with him. Yet in the battle against the pirates, Roberta doesn’t once fire a gun, even though she’s quite possibly the best shooter among them. In the end, Roberta’s value in the context of this film is defined by her connection to her grandfather’s wealth and ship, and her potential to marry one of the Robinson boys.
Typical gender roles aren’t helping the men, either
Kevin: We both had a lot to say on the subject of how this movie treats its women. In general, the film doesn’t treat a lot of its characters well, at least not by modern standards. The men are shafted as well, though nowhere near as bad as the women are. Father is depicted as perhaps the most likable man. He’s a strong, confident leader of the family who knows how to plan for any situation. He makes rational decisions, he’s loving and kind but firm when he needs to be, and he keeps the family organized. In short, Father is the “ideal” man. The problem is that this makes Father the least interesting of the men. We see a little bit of his vulnerability when he confesses to Mother their being trapped on the island is his fault because he wanted to leave for New Guinea, but then we don’t see this for the rest of the film. Why? This could have developed his character better. Instead, Father very quickly adapts to the island and soon decides he’d like to stay. By the end of the film, he gets this very wish, and his above-mentioned traits never disappear or are challenged in any way by the hardships of the island. Notice here that it is the man who gets his desire in the end, and not so much the woman. While Mother eventually comes around to his thinking, it sends the subtle message that the man is in the right and his wife will eventually follow his decision. This is extra problematic because, again, looking up info on the book implies the two were far more mutual in their decision to stay on the island. In the end, Father remains the strong, unwavering man—no development here to see. Also, we see Father’s stereotypical insistence that men must be the ones to lead. During the preparations for the fight against the pirates, he states that should he die, Fritz should be the one to take over, then Ernst. Why not Mother? She is one of the other parents, can’t she also be trusted to lead should anything happen to him?
Father takes the backseat for most the film as the writers instead choose to focus the story on the sons, Fritz and Ernst. These two are far more interesting because we see their adventures and we get a stronger sense of who they are and what they want. Still, the writing does them no favors. In spite of the film telling us otherwise, we never see the boys in a true state of vulnerability. Fritz, the eldest, takes on the role of leader while he and Ernst are exploring the island. In itself this isn’t bad, but it comes at the cost of the character looking arrogant a lot of the time. Ernst is an aspiring scholar, using his intelligence to invent things. His problem is that he acts like he’s smarter than everyone else, constantly trying to one-up his brother or impress Roberta, both of which he fails at. Ernst is smarmy, and is quite honestly the most annoying of the male characters. These characters fit the typical male gender roles of leadership and intelligence, but both come off unbearable in their own ways. It gets worse when they fight over Roberta. These fights are less to do with the boys opening their emotions and more to do with “boys will be boys.” I’ll never understand this concept at all. It’s weird enough when men who are total strangers to one another do it, but close friends or family is even stranger. They’re brothers, and the film shows that they’re close to one another so it’s bizarre to let romance get in the way of their relationship. I get they are a couple of young men who are interested in women, and one could argue that their fighting over Roberta is a result of being trapped on an island with no other women to bond with. But the argument falls completely flat when realizing that Disney in particular—and Hollywood in general—had been playing up the trope for decades prior to this film (and in many ways still do today). In fact, I’d argue that Fritz is the only one who has a possible genuine interest in Roberta, whereas Ernst sees her more as someone he should be with because she’s the only woman he knows other than his mother. Although Ernst relents at the end of the movie, it’s a weird thing to see anyone, regardless of gender, fight other folks over romantic partners. While Ernst doesn’t win over Roberta, he achieves his goal by being allowed to attend a prestigious university in London. This brings me to the last problem with this romance, which once more goes right back to the man getting what he wants: Roberta eventually decides to stay on the island with Fritz, echoing what happens with Mother and Father. Before this moment Roberta’s main desire was to get back to London, and she gives that all up to stay with a man she met in the jungle (Tarzan and Jane, anyone?). The main issue is that the men are seen as the doers, the strong, the intelligent, the confident ones who ultimately get what they want simply because they’re men, not necessarily because they earned it.
The problem with equating so-called “feminine” traits with weakness
Megan: One of the scenes I found most problematic in this film was when Fritz, Ernst, and Bertie stop to rest for the night. While Bertie insists on staying up rather than sleeping between the Robinson boys, the brothers whisper to each other.
ERNST: Remember the first time we came here? Everything scared us. All those strange noises.
FRITZ: How could I forget?
ERNST: We must’ve been pretty helpless.
FRITZ: That I’d have to agree with.
ERNST: Fritz, listen, you don’t think we were something like him?
FRITZ: I don’t think so. Did you get a good look at his hands?
ERNST: I bet he’s never done anything. A wealthy family. Probably an only child. Sometime, get a look at the way he walks.
FRITZ: I did.
ERNST: And back home we used to call Jean Monteaux a sissy.
FRITZ: You remember the other afternoon we were wishing we could see some girls?
ERNST: Yeah?
FRITZ: I don’t think we could’ve come much closer to getting our wish and still miss it completely.
Megan: We laugh at the end of this exchange because the audience knows Bertie’s true identity while the boys do not, yet for today’s audience it’s an awkward chuckle after what came before it. Several things are wrong with this exchange. For one thing, while the boys admit to being scared and helpless when they first arrived on the island, the audience never saw them being scared or helpless. We only saw Mother acting scared and helpless, never the boys or their father. This perpetuates the notion that to be masculine means to never show fear, or, better yet, never be afraid in the first place. What’s worse, the brothers point to Bertie’s fear and helplessness with derision. “You don’t think we were something like him?” With his “I don’t think so,” Fritz is somewhat right—from what the audience could see, the boys never were frightened in the same way Bertie appears to be. Yet I can guarantee that any human, male or female, would be scared if they found themselves suddenly shipwrecked on an island with wild animals and pirates after them, and few resources for survival.
Megan: Refusing to visually show male fear or helplessness while visually showing female fear and helplessness suddenly makes these “feminine” traits rather than universal emotions. And heaven forbid a male display anything but masculinity! Even today, though we have made strides since the 1800s (when this film is set) and the 1960s (when this film was released), one of the best ways to insult a male is to call him female, because society devalues women and sees them as less than men. We see this exemplified in Fritz and Ernst’s conversation as they insinuate that Bertie is even more of a “sissy” than a boy they knew back home. That Bertie is actually a girl is irrelevant. The message of this scene is clear: real men aren’t weak, helpless, or scared. However, as we’re beginning to learn, forcing boys and men to adhere to the strict masculine ideal is detrimental. Unable to express the full range of human emotions, males are left with fewer “acceptable” emotions—happiness and anger, but never fear, sadness, uncertainty, etc.—and often end up suffering emotional, mental, and physical distress as a result. Can one film do all this damage? By itself, no, but it is one contributing factor in a society full of media that continues to reinforce gender roles to the detriment of everyone.
The portrayal of the pirates is racist
Megan: These days when someone says “pirates” I think most of us picture Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow before anything else, and while pop-culture has in many ways erased the different nationalities of pirates with such depictions, Swiss Family Robinson goes too far in the opposite direction with a racist depiction of Asians. In trying to research the precise nationality of the pirates in the story, I discovered something more troubling—the pirates weren’t in the original book! According to Disney Wiki, the pirates were Disney’s invention, presumably added to the story to create more conflict. Now, I don’t have a problem with adding pirates to a story to raise the stakes, but Disney didn’t have to be so racist about it. Based on the origins of the pirates’ names and the style of ship they use, I’m guessing they’re supposed to be from somewhere around the South China Sea (some sources said the ship was Chinese, but Malay ships look very similar, and still other countries in that region used similar battened sails in the 1800s, which is when this film is set). Sessue Hayakawa, the actor who plays the pirate leader, is from Japan, so the intended nationality of the pirates is anyone’s guess. The thing is, even if the filmmakers were going for historical accuracy, the end result only serves to portray the pirates as “other.” Okay, sure, they’re the villains. We’re not supposed to like them. Yet there are many films that manage to create compelling, three-dimensional villains who we come to understand, even if we disagree with them. The audience is largely prevented from relating to these pirates because we don’t understand their verbal language (I couldn’t quite figure out what language they’re speaking in the research I did, so if you recognize it please share in the comments) and we aren’t presented with subtitles. All we have to go on is the characters’ actions and occasional broken English. At times this is done on purpose—the audience is meant to be as confused as the protagonists who also can’t understand what the other person is saying—but I find in this instance it further alienates the audience, giving them no compelling reason to see the pirates as anything except “other.” What’s more, because the pirate characters are two-dimensional, all we see of the pirates is their violence. We have no insight to their motivations. Why have they chosen a life of piracy in the first place? Why continue to pursue the Robinson family specifically after the first encounter? Why insist on capturing Bertie, whom they believe to be a boy? Without answers to these questions, we are primed to dislike the pirates purely for their violence and otherness, and to celebrate the Robinsons with each pirate they manage to kill or subdue. It’s yet another film that perpetuates racism against non-white groups of people, and it made the pirate scenes uncomfortable to watch.
Why aren’t Mother and Father given names?
Kevin: I’ll be brief here, but it’s something I want to mention. After we watched this, I read up a little bit on the book and learned that the mother and father both have names in the original story (Elizabeth and Pastor, respectively). I wonder why Disney chose to omit the names from these characters? It’s very weird to see them both call each other “Mother” or “Father” throughout the film, although I believe this was common in the era in which the film takes place. Still, the issue with this is it only serves to disassociate the parents from their children. Father already comes off rather distant from the children given the reasons mentioned earlier, but the lack of the name just makes him seem a bit less human. He serves an outdated ideal role, and is known only by a title that defines what his role is. The same thing can be said for Mother. She is not given a name, and being called only Mother just reinforces that her name defines her role as the typical mother, as Megan pointed out above. It may have been that this was Disney’s intention, since the story clearly focuses on their sons, but it doesn’t help the parents’ characters at all.
Those poor animals!
Megan: What is it with Kevin Corcoran playing all these little boy characters who are obsessed with (and borderline abusive to) animals? Although to be fair, it wasn’t just Francis’s interactions with animals that I found troubling—it was nearly every animal scene. From the moment we see the animals shipwrecked with the Robinsons until the crazy animal race at the end, I kept wondering, are the animals okay? I mean Francis leaps onto a large turtle like he’s trying to ride it while dogs bark at it. The older boys wrestle the hog in the ship’s hold and tie it and most of the other livestock to barrel floaties to bring them to shore. Francis (while saying “I won’t hurt you”) catches a baby elephant who is then nearly attacked by a tiger. Then the dogs wrestle the tiger (one of the scenes I found especially worrying). The boys try to ride an ostrich which clearly doesn’t want to be ridden. Fritz wrestles a snake in the water (though according to D23’s website the actor nearly drowned filming that scene, so maybe the well-being of the snake was not the highest concern). The zebra is trapped in a mud pit surrounded by hyenas and then ridden like a horse, the tiger falls into a pit trap… Seriously, if you see an animal on screen in this film, chances are it’s either doing something against its nature or being chased/ridden by one of the human actors. While I touched on this a little bit in our review of Old Yeller, I feel like it bears repeating—thank goodness they started regulating the treatment of animals in film! I was curious when the “no animals were harmed” end credit certification became a thing, and from what I can search on the American Humane Association’s Humane Hollywood website, it looks like they only started certifying movies in the 1970s (there was one film in 1959, but they otherwise don’t list any films before 1970). Hopefully when we reach Disney’s films from the 1970s we’ll see the treatment of animals change for the better.
Kevin: The film is an unfortunate example of how humans use animals for their own self-interest because, well, why not? The Robinsons use some of the animals as rides in the race, and one question I had is how did they even manage to tame them enough to do it? They definitely didn’t master it since some of the animals refuse to cooperate, but they were still tamed enough to be able to participate in a competition that is only for the satisfaction of humans. I also agree with Kevin Corcoran’s role here. Was it his idea or Disney’s to have his character always think of every animal as his own? Between Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, and this movie, Corcoran’s character has had at least one or more lines where he claims ownership of an animal, and in all of these films not a single older figure steps in to either tell him “no” or to instruct on how to properly care for the animal. It reinforces the idea that a child can take possession of any animal even if they have no idea what to do afterwards. Really, it comes off more as Corcoran’s characters wanting the animals because he thinks they’re cute and for no other reason. There are enough stories of people who adopt pets only to give them up because they weren’t properly prepared (or willing) to take care of them, seemingly seeing the animal more as an accessory than a living creature. We don’t need a film like this to reinforce such ideas.
In spite of everything, it’s still a great adventure story
Megan: So, I’ll admit, I’ve been pretty critical of this film up to this point, but I do want to say that I still enjoyed watching this film. Though the characterization could use further development, the plot is well-structured and makes for a fun and engaging adventure story. Also, the treehouse set is such a marvel! Reading D23’s article on what it took to create the treehouse set in the first place gave me an even greater appreciation for it. I’m sure if I’d seen this movie as a kid it would have only made me beg my parents for a treehouse even more than I already did. I also found several moments in this film entertaining, especially the situational humor surrounding Roberta’s mistaken identity. While I have never been a fan of married couples calling each other “Mother” or “Father,” I did appreciate the scene where Mr. Robinson surprises his wife with the bedroom skylight she always wanted. I thought that whole scene was really sweet—even with Mrs. Robinson trying to find something to criticize just to keep her from crying. Would I watch this movie again? Probably. Though if I had my chance to retell this story I would definitely make some modifications.
Kevin: Time has not been kind to this movie at all. If this were ever remade by Disney today, I imagine they would go in completely different directions. The overall story would probably remain the same, but I doubt we’d get the conflict between the two brothers or the appearance of the pirates (at least not depicted as they were here). Still, I have to agree with Megan. I can see why audiences really enjoy this. This movie has a real sense of adventure behind it that completely outclasses a snoozer like Treasure Island. It gives us a well-functioning family and shows how loving and close the Robinsons are. The action sequences are pretty good and some of the humor still works by today’s standards. It sits at mid-range for me because of all its problems, but it has heart.
Verdict
Megan: 5
Kevin: 5
Final Score: 5
What did you think of Swiss Family Robinson? If you’ve read the book, how does it compare to the film? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
