A Montanha Enfeitiçada

Alexander Key's popular pre-teen novel concerns two orphaned siblings with supernatural powers taken in by a nefarious millionaire (named Aristotle Bolt!) who wants to exploit their magical abilities for personal gain. Top-notch Walt Disney adventure for families has natural, non-precocious performances from young Ike Eisenmann and Kim Richards as the gifted kids, and their friendship with good-hearted traveler Eddie Albert is sweet but not sticky. The eerie flashbacks to the youngsters' early beginnings are well-captured by director John Hough, who is otherwise forced (perhaps for budgetary reasons) to skimp on genuine atmosphere in place of an elongated chase. Too bad the finale replaces emotion with effects, as these characters are quite remarkable. Followed by a fairly wan sequel, 1978's "Return From Witch Mountain", in which the special effects became the whole show. **1/2 from ****

In 1975, I was 11 years old. "Escape To Witch Mountain" played to a packed house at a now-defunct old theatre called, Miracle. People were sitting on the floor because they sold more tickets than they had seats. I'd never seen anything like that before.

My dad and step mom took me to the movie and we got the last of the few remaining seats. They probably only took me because it was a Disney flick. Had to be harmless, right? Hardly. Afterward, they were puzzled by the seemingly surprising UFO angle. I remember being absolutely transfixed. I'm still fascinated with mysterious stuff like UFOs and ghosts. I wasn't supposed to like that stuff but this film made it impossible for me not to.

And I identified with the kid heroes on a deeper level as well. I, myself, was kind of a ragamuffin misfit kid from a broken home who spent weekends with my dad's new blended family. I felt the siblings' pain at being torn from their home. Tia broke my heart. She was as fragile as me, but far stronger when it really counted. Tony was just hot! Older and very cute at 13. And those powers they had? How cool was that? By the time the credits rolled, I knew I'd seen the best movie ever!

I was lucky enough to have an older cousin who loved movies and hanging out with me and she bought the Disney movie record for me. I don't know if any of you remember these; Disney used to release LPs of the audio track of some of their movies, usually truncated and featuring narration. In the case of "Escape", it was narrated by Eddie Albert. This thing enabled me to memorize every line of Tony and Tia's dialog and much of that of the other characters, too. I still have it, though the sleeve is long lost. It's tough for me to watch the movie without speaking along with the characters (especially Tia), at least in my head.

My cousin also bought me Alexander Key's book. Boy, Disney sure took liberties, didn't they? Key's book is far more serious and developed and meaningful. I tried to take the best parts from the book and the movie and incorporate them together into the Tony and Tia of my imagination. It deepened them. Too bad there was no fanatic outlet back in those days! It was pretty egolesss of Alexander Key for coming together with Disney on the eventual novelization of "Return". Without Key's kind participation, it would of been an empty exercise. I was especially impressed with how he incorporated the issue of Tia needing to learn to speak.

Through the years, I never "Escape" and I saw it as often as I could. For instance, when "Return" was released, Disney sent the movies out as a double feature. I loved "Return", silly as it was, even though there were things in it that really bugged me. Like the sibs being split apart for most of the movie. I loved them together! I think most of the fans of the first film were most affected by their chemistry. I think we wanted to see more of that. Even so, I really liked the Earthquakes, all of them. And it was fun to see Kim and Ike a bit older and even cuter than before. I also remember seeing "Escape" on an odd revival double-bill with "Bambi" at some point in my teen years. I think I would've followed Kim and Ike anywhere. Heck, I even followed them to "Devil Dog, The Hound Of Hell". You have to see the comments page here at IMDb if you haven't already.

I would've seen "Tuff Turf" even if Kim wasn't in it, but that's a convoluted story for another thread. Suffice to say I have seen TT far too many times and many of them were for Kim. Also, I can honestly say I enjoy the TV edit of "Star Trek II" far more than the theatrical cut because it has more Ike. I even had a good time watching "Blair Witch Mountain..." when it hit the web. I have to agree that it might be fun to revisit Tony and Tia with the original actors today. Hey, last year, the new "Twilight Zone" brought Anthony (Billy Mumy) back and introduced us to his similarly gifted, but far less scary (real life) daughter (Liliana Mumy). And all those people came back from the cornfield. Why not Tony & Tia?

I could rhapsodize for paragraphs about both "With Mountain" films, and I may still do so when I get my special edition DVDs. In the meantime, here's hoping that a whole new generation of kids will discover "Witch Mountain" for themselves.

A long time ago, I was into books. This isn't a light phrase, I took out multitudes of them from the library. Alexander Key wrote a neat novel called "Escape to Witch Mountain" about a priest named Father O'Day who helps two siblings return to their people. It was a very good book, and I knew when I bought the book from the Book Fair that it was a reprint to endorse the movie. However, at that time, my movie-experiences were minimal. It took several years for me to actually be able to see the movie (when Disney first brought out the Disney Channel, iirc) and I was a bit surprised at the liberties that were taken with Key's book. The priest became the widower, and the beat up car became the RV. Bolt was not in the book, but he was an interesting main-villian, and I enjoyed the movie. My son, who is now 6 (Tues this week) enjoys watching it on VHS as much as I do!

Return was not as good--it was a "let's make money by doing a sequel" but it was cool too. As that 5th grader, I knew what it was to be outside the norm, and I wanted to have the same powers that Tia did, so I guess that's saying something!

I too place this movie with Parent Trap, Candleshoe, and Freaky Friday. Good movies that I don't have to worry about my child "catching" wrong words from! **** out of 5.

Having seen the new version of this film recently ("Race to Witch Mountain"), I cannot tell you how much of a pleasant surprise "Escape to Witch Mountain" was to me. The new version, in my opinion, lacks any kind of character development and is full of annoying characters that do nothing to help the movie. Essentially, the new version basically did away with the first 45 minutes or so of this film, which helped set up the story, develop the characters, and give us a better sense of why the kids are running away. Also, Dwayne Johnson is incredibly lacking in emotion and character compared to Eddie Albert in this movie. While I admit that most of the special effects in this film may seem cheesy by today's standards, they actually make the film even more fun to laugh at. This film came out of a couple of decades when Disney was at its height of live action movies, when even film of this type they turned out was at least worthwhile. This is an enjoyable movie, with good jobs of acting done by basically all of the characters. Appropriate for anyone in the family, exciting, funny, and likable.

***1/2 out of ****

I first saw Escape to Witch Mountain when it came out in 1975. Even though I was 22 at that time, I still remember the warm feelings that were in my heart when the movie was over. It made me feel like a little boy again! Over the years, I must have seen this movie at least 50 times, and I still get heart-warming feelings every time I view it. I have three children, (girls), and made sure that they saw it. They loved it! I originally went to see this movie because I was a fan of Donald Pleasence and Eddie Albert. It was'nt long before I became a fan of Ike and Kim as well. It would be terrific if Disney would do a sequel, (with Ike & Kim).