Third Man on the Mountain

 Third Man on the Mountain is the story of a teenager trying to conquer the mountain that killed his father. Just think of it as a revenge movie! Except you can't kill a mountain....or can you? This movie is the fifth movie that Disney made in England, the others being Robin Hood, Treasure Island, The Sword and the Rose, and Rob Roy. The film is based off of the 1954 novel Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman. The book details the real life first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. While the main character in this film is entirely fictional, and thus is not in Banner in the Sky, the character of Captain John Winters is based off of real mountain climber Edward Whymper. The book's rights were bought fairly quickly by Disney in 1957. Disney reunited with Ken Annakin, who had directed Robin Hood and The Sword and the Rose, to direct Third Man on the Mountain. For the lead, they went with James MacArthur, who was shaping up to be their new, young leading man. David Niven was signed on to play Captain John Winter, but had to drop out, which made room for Michael Rennie. Rennie is perhaps best known for his role in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Janet Munro, fresh off her first role for Disney in Darby O'Gill and the Little People, plays Lizbeth, the love interest for MacArthur's Rudi. I've only seen Munro in Darby, so it was fun seeing her in another film. My favorite character in the film is Franz Lerner, who is Rudi's uncle and takes over as his father figure. Lerner is played by James Donald, who had roles in The Bridge on the River Kwai, and The Great Escape. I think I just like James Donald as an actor, though in this movie he plays the strict uncle, so he's not the most sympathetic of characters. 

The story follows young Rudi Matt, an 18 year old who loves to climb mountains like his dad. He lives in the village of Kurtal in Switzerland, where many people come to climb the mountains for fun. One of the most lucrative jobs in the area is as a guide for those willing to brave the mountains. Rudi's father, Josef Matt, was an expert mountain climber and guide. The Citadel is the highest and most dangerous peak in the region and no one has been able to scale it yet. Josef was the last person to die trying to get to the top of the Citadel, saving the group that he had led up the mountain. The rumor in the village is that Josef had found a secret passage to get to the top of the Citadel the day he died. Rudi dreams of being a mountain guide like his father, but his Uncle Franz is too afraid that Rudi will get himself killed going up there. Franz is himself a mountain guide and knows how easy it is to make a simple mistake and fall to your death. Franz helps raise Rudi with Rudi's mother after Josef died on the mountain. Franz tries to keep Rudi from becoming a guide by giving him more menial jobs to do in the village, like being a dishwasher for Herr Hempel, who runs a local hotel. Hempel's daughter Lizbeth likes Rudi and often spends time in the kitchen talking to him. Rudi often sneaks out of the kitchen so he can climb the smaller mountains. One day, while he is supposed to be washing dishes, he goes on one of the mountain passes and runs into a climber stuck in a crevasse. Rudi saves the man, who ends up being the famed mountain climber Captain John Winter. Winter thanks Rudi and tells him that his aspiration is to find the secret path up to the the top of the Citadel. Once they get back to town, Winter hires Franz to be his guide up the mountain and convinces Franz to let Rudi come as a porter. Winter buys Rudi all new mountain climbing equipment and all seems too good to be true. The three men journey up the mountain and all is going well until Franz learns the real reason Winter wants to go up the mountain is to get a better look at the Citadel. Franz calls it an evil place and refuses to discuss a route up. Rudi tries to look for a better way up the mountain and ends up getting himself stuck, causing the other two men to risk their lives trying to save him. Rudi is shamed for his carelessness and the men travel back to Kurtal. Once they get back, Winter leaves the town and Franz sells Rudi's new gear. Lizbeth buys the new boots from Franz and saves them for Rudi. Teo, Josef's old climbing buddy, decides to teach Rudi how to properly climb mountains. Rudi goes to his uncle to ask to be his porter, but is publicly humiliated by him. 

The townspeople soon begin talking about two men seen climbing high up on the mountain. They look through a telescope and see it is Winter, along with Emil Saxo, a guide from a rival tourist town. The next day, Teo looks into the telescope and sees three men now and deduces that the third man is Rudi, who has snuck off after being rejected by his uncle. He convinces four men, including Franz, to go up the mountain to retrieve Rudi. Rudi catches up with Winter and Emil and tells them that he has permission from Franz to be up there. They continue until Winter suffers a head injury from a rock slide. Winter tells Rudi to go back and get Franz. He is about to go but instead seeks out the secret passage to the Citadel. In the meantime, Franz and the group, including Teo, find Winter and Emil. They are about to go search for Rudi, but Rudi comes back at that moment saying that he found the passage. Franz insists on taking Rudi back down the mountain, but Teo convinces him that Rudi has earned the chance to climb up the rest of the way. Winter, Franz, Emil, and Rudi all climb up the mountain. Winter begins to have a fever so Franz stays with him while Emil continues upward. Rudi sneaks away to be with Emil and all seems well until Emil falls and breaks his arm. Though Emil urges Rudi to continue without him, Rudi starts to carry the man back down to the camp. Winter and Franz discover the two men are missing and set out to find them. They find Rudi's abandoned pack and Winter takes it with him. Rudi is able to get Emil back to camp and thanks to Rudi's shortcut, Winter and Franz make it to the top of the Citadel. The four men return to Kurtal to a hero's welcome. Winter reveals to Rudi that he planted Rudi's flag at the top of the mountain, causing the whole village to cheer. Lizbeth kisses Rudi and they all live happily ever after. 

They filmed the movie at the Matterhorn in Switzerland, and as you can imagine the filming process was not always easy. The entire cast and crew had to take a basic mountaineering class, all 170 of them. James Donald ended up falling off a crag but luckily escaped with minor injuries. A crew member was not as lucky and broke three ribs when he fell into a crevasse. MacArthur enjoyed being in Switzerland and would climb the Matterhorn when he had a day off. Disney productions would later detail the difficulty of making a film partly on a mountain in the Walt Disney Presents episode, "Perilous Assignments." While the film hasn't stayed in the public consciousness, the movie did inspire something that is very well-known to Disneyland patrons. While Walt was in visiting Switzerland for the filming of Third Man on the Mountain he became so impressed by the beauty of the real Matterhorn that he grabbed a postcard and sent it back to WED Enterprises (what Disney Imagineering used to be called) asking them to build this ride for him. This actually solved a problem Disney was having in Disneyland, as there was a hill that was made from the excavated dirt from Sleeping Beauty's castle that Disney had called Holiday Hill. While Disney had encouraged people to use the hill for picnicking, horny teens had instead turned it into a lover's lane, much to Disney's despair. He had wanted to put a tobaggon ride in the park, and he finally was able to combine this idea with the real Matterhorn and the newer models of rollercoasters called wild-mouse. While the ride was definitely inspired by the real Matterhorn and Third Man on the Mountain, it is not a ride based off of the movie. Unless there's a part in this movie where Rudi gets chased down the mountain by a yeti and I completely forgot about it. 

The movie premiered on November 10th, 1959 and it received mixed reviews. Some reviewers did not the overall cloying sentimentality, while others complained about the overacting from much of the cast. Something that all the reviewers had to agree on was that it was a marvel to watch, as it was a very beautiful film. This is definitely not a film that would have been perceived as well if it had been filmed on a soundstage. The movie did not end up making back its budget, only grossing $1.7 million against a $2 million budget. It's really too bad that this movie has been almost completely forgotten. It's got some great action sequences and it really does put you on edge watching them traverse the mountain. I found James MacArthur, Michael Rennie, and James Donald to have really great performances throughout, with MacArthur doing a better job than he did in The Light in the Forest. Unfortunately this is one of those movies that is not on Disney Plus so it's a bit harder to find. I was able to find it at library on VHS, so that was a fun viewing experience. Hopefully once the movie is more readily available it might get the recognition it deserves. 

The Light in the Forest

Disney was riding high after the immense popularity of Old Yeller and followed it up with an admittedly more serious affair, The Light in the Forest. The movie is based on Conrad Richter's novel of the same name which Disney bought the rights to as soon as it was released in 1953. The movie deals with a young white boy who was raised by Native Americans until a treaty with the United States forces him to be thrust back into white society. This would be Fess Parker's last film with Disney as he had become dissatisfied with the roles Disney cast him in. He complained that he was always playing the exact same character, a claim that was given more validity because Disney refused to lend him out to other studios if said role was outside of the norm for what they would use him for. He was offered only a small part in the movie Tonka and subsequently refused, causing him to be put on suspension, as he was a contract actor for Disney. He left the studio shortly after. Parker would never see as much success in movies as he had with Disney, but he would go on to lead an ensemble cast in the popular 1964 series Daniel Boone (ironically another American hero like Davy Crockett).

Story

In 1764, a new peace treaty between white settlers and Native Americans declares that all white captives must be released. Johnny Butler was taken captive early in his young life, and now at near fifteen he knows nothing of his life with his real family. He had been fully assimilated in Lenni Lenape tribe and was given the name True Son by his adoptive father, Cuyloga. He is taken to Fort Pitt accompanied by a young soldier named Del Hardy who looks after him. True Son is despondent that he must live with the white people, the very people he grew up hating. He tries to commit suicide on the way to Fort Pitt but is stopped by Hardy. Hardy introduces him to his real father and accompanies them back to their home acting as an interpreter (and basically mentor). As you can imagine, things don't go so smoothly. True Son refuses to acknowledge his family and is cold to them, pretending that he understands no English. At his homecoming party he has a confrontation with is Uncle Wilse, who claims that the Lenni Lenape killed nearby settlers and scalped women and children. True Son defends his adoptive family and gets slapped for it. A girl named Shenandoe, who is an indentured servant for Uncle Wilse's family becomes fascinated by True Son, though she has her own hatred for natives due to her family being scalped by an unknown tribe. True Son and Shenandoe eventually get to know each other, and they start to realize that their prejudices were completely wrong. With that understanding they also start to fall in love with each other. While things are starting to go better between True Son and his new family, things become complicated when True Son's old friend Half Arrow comes and visits him. Half Arrow gives him news that Little Crane, another member of their tribe, was killed by men in town because he was trying to visit True Son. Half Arrow attacks Uncle Wilse and almost scalps him but is stopped by True Son. True son and Half Arrow run back to the Lenni Lenape. The Lenni Lenape declare war on the white settlers and it looks like for a short time that things will go back to the way they were before the treaty for True Son. However, while he is in a raiding party and they are prepared to attack a boat of white settlers, he sees that Del Hardy is in the boat and decides to warn them of the attack. He is almost executed by his tribe but Cuyloga convinces his people to have him be cast out permanently. Hardy takes True Son back to his family, though they talk about how True Son had heard of murdered children by the Lenni Lenape. Hardy tells him that there are good and bad people everywhere. He returns back to his real family, but quickly gets into a fight with Uncle Wilse. They duke it out once and for all, with True Son winning the brawl and Uncle Wilse declaring that True Son is now a white man. True Son and Shenandoe reunite and begin to plan their future. 

The film follows the book pretty closely, but you can definitely see why Disney made the changes they made. In the book, Uncle Wilse is scalped by Half Arrow and True Son after Little Crane is murdered. Del Hardy is basically just in the beginning of the book and does not factor into the climax the way he does in the film. This was obviously done to give Fess Parker a bigger part in the film since he wasn't the lead actor. Shenandoe was added to the film to give True Son a love interest, something that would make the film more accessible to the younger movie-going demographic. The novel ends more on a not of uncertainty, with True Son being led back to a white road by Cuyloga and not sure where his future lies. 

Cast

The cast is led by James MacArthur playing the young True Son/Johnny Butler. MacArthur signed on as a contract actor for Disney starting with this film and would go on to star in three more Disney movies. Disney was pretty good about keeping one consistent actor in a string of movies, so consider this the transition from Fess Parker to James MacArthur. MacArthur is perhaps more known for his role as Danny "Danno" Williams in Hawaii Five-O. Carol Lynley plays Shenandoe, her first of many roles. Lynley would be nominated for Most Promising Newcomer at the Golden Globes in 1969 for her role in The Light in the Forest. She would go on to have prominent roles in Blue Denim and The Poseidon Adventure. Perhaps the most well-known actor outside of Fess Parker in this movie is Jessica Tandy, who played True Son's real mother. Tandy became famous later in her life in roles like Cocoon, Driving Miss Daisy, and Fried Green Tomatoes. 

Release

The film premiered in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where the movie is supposed to take place, on July 9th, 1958. Reception to the movie was tepid at best. Most critics praised some aspects of the film, but most were superficial. Generally it was seen as not a worthy follow-up to the smash hit that was Old Yeller. I myself liked the movie just fine, but it certainly doesn't belong in the same conversation as the Disney greats. The next film I'll be covering did end up surprising me on how much I enjoyed it, and it showed how good of an actor that James MacArthur could be.