Why Do they call it the Citadel?
Curious as to why they didn't use the mountain's authentic name. With such an iconic look, it seems a bit idiotic to call it anything but the Matterhorn?
shareThe Citadel is supposed to be a fictional mountain in Switzerland, so the Matterhorn is basically just standing in for it. This was probably easier to get away with in 1959 when audiences in the US wouldn't have been very familiar with it, so watching it nowadays when we're much more familiar with it, thanks to Disneyland, just makes it stand out more.
The story is set in 1866, while the Matterhorn was first scaled in 1865, so it's not supposed to be an account of the Matterhorn's first ascent. The film is actually adapted from a 1954 novel called "Banner In the Sky."