Swiss Family Robinson (1960) on Netflix

G19602h 6mAdventure Family

Pirates attack the ship carrying a Swiss family from Bern to New Guinea. Abandoned by the crew, the vessel grounds off an uninhabited island, and the family makes a home ashore.

Netflix3.9/5
IMDb7.1/1020,239 votes
Rotten Tomatoes82%

Trailer

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Plot summary

A family from Bern sails toward a colony in New Guinea, leaving Switzerland behind during the Napoleonic Wars. Pirates attack their ship, the crew flees, and the vessel runs aground on rocks near an island with no inhabitants. Father, Mother, and their sons Fritz, Ernst, and Francis get to shore with the captain's two Great Danes. Fritz and Ernst return to the wreck for supplies and livestock. To gain safety and comfort, the family raises an elaborate tree house with a water wheel, and Francis gathers animals, among them a monkey, an ostrich, and an elephant. Pirates are still in the region. Mother worries that her sons will have no wives or families of their own without a rescue, so she lets Fritz and Ernst take a homemade outrigger around the island to look for other settlements.

Cast

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Swiss Family Robinson (1960)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

Soon after shooting began in Tobago, the British crew grew angry over their pay and threatened to walk off the production; their NATKE union representative, Cyril "Cid" Thawley, negotiated a new agreement that added overtime pay.
The idea of the brothers discovering a girl disguised as a boy came from actress Janet Munro, who drew on stories she used to tell about dressing as a boy while performing on stage with her own father, Alex Munro.
In 1960 the treehouse was listed for sale at $9,000, a fraction of its original cost, and became a popular attraction among locals and tourists before Hurricane Flora destroyed the structure in September 1963; the tree still remains.
Disney added a disclaimer to this and other films in its classic movie catalog in 2019, and the original disclaimers were updated in 2020 to acknowledge issues regarding supposed racial stereotypes that "were wrong then and are wrong now".
The film was the first Walt Disney Pictures release shot in true widescreen using Panavision lenses, since Disney had previously relied on a matted widescreen process or CinemaScope.