I agree, skip the 1993 and buy Shirley Temple and this one.
The Shirley Temple movie, by accounts of those involved in it, started out as a decent try at filming "Heidi," but was ruined in large part by Shirley's mother. She was jealous of Delmar Watson, who Shirley herself chose to play Peter, and so padded the story with ridiculous stuff to build up Shirley and downplay Delmar. Partly as a result of this, the Shirley version was worse than it really needed to be.
Just about all the movies portray the grandfather as grouchier than in the book, no doubt for dramatic purposes, but the Jason Robards version carried this to ridiculous lengths. Max Von Sydow and even the guy in the Shirley version were MUCH better! In the 1993 version, even Noely Thornton, who played Heidi, was way too gloomy. Emma Bolger is a veritable ray of sunshine in comparison.
Shirley was the closest in looks and personality to Heidi. Her hair was blond, but in black-and-white it didn't look too far off. Noely Thornton was the worst. Her hair wasn't just long, but RIDICULOUSLY so--wrapped clear around her head! Emma Bolger had beautiful brown hair, but that they didn't even bother to curl it was one of the drab things about this film, which was slow-paced, uninspiring, and took many liberties, but sad to say STILL ranks in the upper 50% of films which have tried to portray "Heidi" as at least a "nice try" compared to some of the travesties which have been committed under this famous child's name.
This was certainly the huggiest "Heidi." My mom complained about Heidi "hugging everyone she would hug in real life and everyone she wouldn't"--including the goats but not Rottenmeier! Rottenmeier thought Heidi wasn't a real name, but of the thousands of girls named Heidi, how many are actually christened Adelheid?
All the actors were wonderful, and except for being able to understand every word, the British accents didn't really bother me; they are still closer than Americans would be.
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