Film Review: Swiss Family Robinson

Hey-ho, I KNEW you could see this coming!

I promised Glissando a review of a film which I imagine is as idyllic as his life on a beach down under.
And, being a Swiss resident, it was only a matter of time before I turned my attention to this film...


But, you ask...since when was 'Robinson' a Swiss name?


And you would be right - it's not.


I read the book when I was a child, long before my links with Switzerland.
I always thought it was a factual story.


But now I learn I was wrong all those years ago.


This book was indeed written by a Swiss man, Johann David Wyss. A Swiss pastor, no less.
But it was by no means autobiographical.
The 'Robinson' is a tribute to the adventures of Robinson Crusoe.


Pastor Wyss wrote the book to teach his four sons about what it means to be a man.


Yes, this book was meant to be a blueprint for the journey from boy to man.
In other words, a precursor to The Manosphere :-)






These days, I see 'SMP' in everything.


But this book, really is SMP. It is definitely not my imagination!




The book has spawned a myriad of films, TV-series and spin-offs. The one I am familiar with, (and the version I review) is the 1960 film starring John Mills and Dorothy McGuire.


I cannot find a complete version of this film on Youtube, but Disney have it free here.


In this version of the book, there are only three sons.


The film begins with a shipwreck. The family are on their way to New Guinea when a storm hits. They survive the storm only to find that they have been abandoned by the captain and the crew. They are on their own at sea.


Luckily for them though, they are not too far from land. They make it to dry land, and little by little, they manage to salvage what they can from the ship, making quite a nice life for themselves on the island.


The first striking SMP lesson for me is...this:


Whilst Father and the two eldest sons Fritz and Ernst are doing their best to protect themselves and Francis (the youngest boy) and Mother, these latter two are insistent that the dogs on board be rescued as well, even though to admit the dogs on board would mean endangering the lives of everyone else on board.


:-)


Yes, women and children can get in the way. I get that.


In this particular case, the dogs saved themselves anyway, and swam to safety, so they passed the survival test anyway. Good on them.


But the tendency of the (sometimes) unwarranted caring that women insist on displaying even though should their actions cause a threat to their own safety, it would be men who would be called upon to come to their aid (the same man who opposed said unwarranted 'caring' in the first place!) does not go unnoticed.


Yes, it can be annoying. And it gets in the way of men whose natural instinct is to protect women and children.




The Robinsons do a fine job of creating a paradise for themselves on the island. They build a tree-house with all the mod cons (with items salvaged from the ship) that would be the envy of many a housewife in Bern :-)


But Mother was at first unimpressed, when the building work was still in progress. But she was more than satisfied with the end-result, to the delight of her boys, Father included :-)






If you are starting to get the impression that Mother was a fastidious person, then mea culpa, I have given you the wrong impression.
Mother was actually a very good woman. She is 'fastidious' when it comes to the needs of her precious boys. This is, I suppose, just her natural 'mother's instinct' kicking in, but she is also a very good wife. An exemplary one. She looks after her boys very well, and they look after her.


Everyone is happy.


Except...


Whilst Father is waxing lyrical about how island life is the ideal life, and 'how life was intended to be lived', Mother keeps reminding him that something's missing.


It was alright for him (Father) and her: they had already lived their life. But what about their sons? How tragic that they might live their whole life without experiencing love with a woman, or having a family, or having a social life outside of the family!
To their knowledge to date, they were the only inhabitants of the island.


Now, the MGTOWs would say Amen! to that of course.
:-)
But remember, I don't think teenage boys who had yet to experience the company of girls would be too hot on this idea :-) Just a guess :-)


Father agreed that yes, it would be nice if they could find girls for their boys :-)
He sort of agreed to this idea rather grudgingly, I felt :-)


What is it with older men that they forget how nice the flush of romantic love can be once they have been married for decades?
Women never forget :-)


This scene reminds me of the scene in 'Guess who is coming to dinner?' where the mother of John is desperately trying to remind her husband and the father of Joanna that their time might be past, but the two young lovebirds deserved a chance at building their own life together. She finishes by asking them, 'don't you remember what it was like at their age?' Neither man had an answer for her...






To increase their chances of finding girls, the parents finally allow Fritz and Ernst to sail around the island and take their chances with Nature...and pirates. Mother is scared stiff to let her precious boys go, and yet she is the one who wants them romantically sorted :-)
Ah, the cognitive dissonance of womanhood :-)




At this point in the film one gets the impression that it is indeed time to let Fritz and Ernst go on this trip. It turns out to be some sort of funny 'initiation' for them.
'Initiation' is a term that I gather is a bit of a 'red rag to a bull'. At least this is what I learned that in the MGTOW thread.
This is why I use inverted commas.


But indeed I am guessing that this is the whole point of the book, and therefore of the film. David Wyss really wants his audience (young boys) to get this message: to survive with your bare hands and intellect in Savage Nature. To learn to be a man under the most uncivilised circmstances...


Sure, this skill is largely lost, except in some families where the father has kept the tradition going, and despite 'civilisation', makes sure all the sons know how to hunt, fish, etc. But it is difficult if you live in a big city and you are not that wild about Nature.
In which case, it is much, much easier to raise girls than boys, as you just need the interior of a home to teach a girl to be a useful wife and mother in the way olden day girls were.


On this trip, it is clear that both Fritz and Ernst are well beyond puberty. According to Wikipedia, Fritz is about fifteen, and therefore Ernst must be a year or two younger by inference.


They reminisce about life in Bern before the big trip. Fritz talks about his memories of 'girl-watching' on a street in Bern. They wonder if they will find girls their age when they sail around the island. Fritz jokes that by the time they get to their destination, they would be so (insert your own crude word here), that they wouldn't care what age the girls were.


Poor boys.




Fritz is muscular and brawny. He is also very ambitious. He wants to be his own boss someday soon. For the moment though, he is happy to be in the shadow of Father, but not for much longer.


Ernst, by contrast is an intellectual. He plans to go to University. He plans to conquer the island not by his pysical might, but with his brains. His mother encourages him to 'use his head' because she recognises that this is his strong point, his Uniqe Selling Point.
Father has already come to rely quite heavily on his bright ideas.


And it looks like Francis, the youngest boy is going the way of Ernst. He has wild, but interesting ideas. Bless him, he is about nine or ten, but he certainly knows how to hold his own. But he gets to stay at home with Mother and Father whilst Fritz and Ernst get to experience the big, wide world.
Not fair :P




A funny thing happens to Fritz and Ernst on their travels. They happen upon a British man who has been captured by the dreaded pirates, along with his 14 year old grandson.


They try to save both captives, but unfortunately only have time to free the boy before the pirates come back.
It's a dash for the exit with 'Bertie' in tow as the angry pirates come after them...


Finally having shaken off the pirates, Fritz and Ernst soon realise that all is not well with 'Bertie'. They start to question his masculinity.
This boy cannot run fast, he acts all sissyish, and is just not what a boy ought to be.
In other words...
Gay.


:-)


Ernst wonders the untinkable: were we like this before we toughened up a bit on this island? Fritz reassures him that they were never quite as bad as this Bertie...


This speculation about Bertie's masculnity comes to an abrupt end as Fritz accidentally discovers that 'Bertie' is actually a girl.


Fritz and Ernst, meet Roberta.


And from that moment on, the war between the brothers begin. This turns out to be a game-changing moment :-)


Women, eh. Nothing but trouble :-)




Now here begin the most important SMP lessons.


Fritz, who is more 'alpha' than Ernst, by virtue of his older age, more masculine appearance and slightly aloof personality around Roberta (at least as compared to Ernst's approach to her) really displays how it should be done.


Whilst Ernst is busy doing his best to impress Roberta in the way that clueless young men sometimes go about these things (for example, falling for the bait when she lets drop that she misses the debutante dances in London with the men in the tall hats - and he proceeds to make himself a tall hat out of straw to impress her - no! no! no! Ernst!), Fritz acts all unimpressed when she tells him that her grandfather would offer him a job in his company (what, me, work for another man? No thanks!) and when she invites him to come see her in London once their stint on the island was finished, he politely declined, stating that he wanted to go on to new Guniea and build a life for himself.


All that Ernst was doing was leading to the 'friend zone'. Roberta seemed to like his intellectualism at the beginning, but the alpha boy attracted her more, in the end. Soon, she was finding ever more inventive ways to get closer to Fritz (could you teach me to shoot a gun, Fritz? Pretty please? - flutter of eyelashes, lol). When Ernst offers to teach her to shoot, she is actually repulsed by his offer. She proceeds to shoot an object a million miles away, demonstrating how she actually needed shooting lessons like a fish needs a bicycle :-)


The important difference between these two boys is that one was following his own path in life, and a woman was allowed to enter said path if she wished, and with his consent, of course. The other was ready to abandon his path and follow the woman.


No woman wants to be 'the leader'. No matter how much she protests to the contrary.
Ernst did not know this.
This proved to be the fatal flaw in his quest for Roberta.


In the end, he had to admit defeat. It was clear that Fritz was Roberta's choice.


Mother was delighted to have a 'daughter' at last.
Someone she could discuss 'girl stuff' with :-)
Someone she could dress up in her old dresses :-)
Someone who would (darn it!) marry her son :-)


Satisfied, Mother?


Um, no.
Not yet.
She had three sons, remember? As she reminded Father :-)


Nope, not completely happy until 2 more girls came their way :-)
Fritz was now sorted.
Ernst next, and then Francis...


The film finishes with Ernst going off to Civilisation with Roberta's Grandfather, whilst Mother and Father, and Fritz and Roberta decide to stay and build a new life on their island.


The film is indeed worth watching.
If for nothing, for the idyllic scenery it offers.


But the SMP lessons are also worth the effort, I would say.
Well worth the effort.




Enjoy...