If you've ever wondered what it's like to go camping in the Alaskan wilderness, MOUNTAIN LADY's got you covered. Produced and directed by Daniel L. Quick, who served in various production capacities on several other Christian features, it's narrated by one-time country-gospel impresario Stuart Hamblen, which is probably the only reason anyone might remember it.
With a cast as threadbare as its plot, MOUNTAIN LADY features a grand total of two (2) credited live performers, Tom D. Coreson as Grandpa and Heidi Machen as Heidi, who's dropped off by her dad to spend the summer camping (the identity of the guy playing Heidi's father, only briefly glimpsed during their car ride, unfortunately remains a mystery). Heading out into the Alaskan wilds with grandpa, Heidi is quickly introduced to the various necessities of survival, while the viewer is accosted by down-home aphorisms delivered via Hamblen's narration. Extolling the beauty of the land and calm of the untapped forests, Hamblen ultimately ties it all back to god, even gracing (?) us with one of his ballads ("The Workshop of the Lord"), which stops the film cold for a solid three minutes (as though it were going anywhere anyway). If the film has anything resembling a traditional plot, it's structured around a lost foal that runs off at the end of the first reel. But following a small amount of searching, gramps and Heidi quickly give up, so it's back to nature footage and weenie-roasting for the duration. (At least gramps does sauté up what looks like a mean batch of dandelion greens.)
Next to nothing of any dramatic incident happens in MOUNTAIN LADY, though at the same time it has such an earnest, soporific quality it becomes difficult to hate. There's something pleasantly quaint about the kind of God-and-apple pie picture it paints of Americana, and a calming aura to its endless litany of bucolic nature footage. It's like the good-hearted Christian answer to IN SEARCH OF BIGFOOT, another movie where a group of people head out into the Pacific Northwest and don't really do much of anything. When I say a movie's a sleeping pill, it's usually an insult, but here, through the sheer force of good intentions, MOUNTAIN LADY improbably manages to give sleeping pills a good name. If you ever felt like camping but couldn't be arsed to drag your butt off the couch, this is the film for you.
