Feature film · A way to begin
Heidi
Luigi Comencini · 1952
Synopsis
An orphan, Heidi lives with her grandfather, the Alm-Uncle, in an isolated chalet in the Graubünden mountains, and tends the goats with little Peter. Her aunt Dete wants to take her to the city to keep company with a girl who cannot walk, Clara Sesemann, in Frankfurt, and the grandfather opposes it. In the large bourgeois house where she ends up, Heidi becomes attached to Clara but longs for her mountains, for the old man and for the free life of the alpine pasture.
Context
Comencini made the film for Lazar Wechsler's Praesens-Film, in black and white and in German, at the Rosenhof studios in Zurich and on location in the Grisons and in Basel. Elsbeth Sigmund plays Heidi, Heinrich Gretler the grandfather, Thomas Klameth the little goatherd, with Elsie Attenhofer, Willy Birgel and Theo Lingen. Released on 14 November 1952, it was reissued in cinemas in France in 2013.
Who it is for
Ninety-seven minutes, in black and white, spoken in German; a family film based on the book by Johanna Spyri.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the best adaptation of Johanna Spyri's novel; it had a sequel in 1955.