The New Old Thing: Introduce Your Kids to the 1970s Classic ‘Escape to Witch Mountain’
Every Friday on Yahoo Tech, The New Old Thing brings you recommendations of distinctly untimely — but still amazing! — cultural expression. Lots of sources (including us) will tell you what’s new and worthwhile. But only The New Old Thing tells you what’s not-new, but great, and available to you right now thanks to the magic of technology. (Your tips are welcome; send to rwalkeryn@yahoo.com.)
This week: Design and architecture critic Alexandra Lange (follow her on Twitter/Instagram), a regular at Design Observer and columnist for Dezeen, and author most recently of Writing About Architecture, recommends Escape to Witch Mountain, via Netflix.
Lange first saw this classic back when she was in the target demo — “on a ‘Wonderful World of Disney’ some Sunday night in the 1970s.” But she encountered it again as a parent “panning for gold in the kids section of Netflix Instant.” (In general, she observes, “NI for kids is filled with product-placement TV and straight-to-video sequels.”)
“There’s a withering review of it by Vincent Canby from when it came out in 1975,” she tells me, “but I think he overestimated the critical capacities of children. Yes, it has crazy coincidences and you-can-almost-see-the-strings FX, but my 6-year-old swallowed the whole thing. He thought the upside-down helicopter was delightful. I think present-day kids’ filmmakers should look at this and think about doing more with less.
“This film has real spookiness and mystery, without being scary. I know children who have never sat all the way through a movie in a theater because even PG movies often go too far: too loud, too dark. Witch Mountain lets us have a villain — but resourceful, unafraid children, too.”
And for the parent with a discerning eye, Escape to Witch Mountain offers surprisingly pleasing aesthetics and style. “Love the baby-James Bond opening credits, with running silhouettes, tambourines and animated dogs seemingly dropped in from another Disney movie,” says Lange — whose eye for this sort of thing is pretty much as good as it gets. “The children’s suite at Xanthus is a mod gilded cage, with a pink-striped ice cream parlor and sherbet-colored built-in cabinets.”
At the risk of a spoiler (but those of us of a certain age have seen and remember this): “I love the inside joke of the puppet theater: a set-up by the evil grown-ups to let the telepathic kids test their powers … but the joke turns out to be on them. And the puppets on strings made me think of the herky-jerky special effects. The actors got to be puppets too.”
This is a great new-old find for parents looking for some variety in decent entertainment for kids. Lange adds that in the streaming world she’s also had good luck with the 1990s Tintin TV series, The Rescuers and the BBC’s Walking With… series.
“Kenneth Branagh gives the dinosaurs such a tone,” Lange says.
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