Heidi

Production

20th Century Fox released Heidi in October 1937 as a vehicle for nine-year-old Shirley Temple, then the most popular star at the studio. Walter Ferris and Julien Josephson wrote the screenplay, condensing the 1881 Swiss children’s classic by Johanna Spyri into a tight running time.

Story

Heidi is left by her aunt Dete with her gruff grandfather, the Alm-Uncle, in a hut high above the village of Doerfli. The girl warms her grandfather toward the world while befriending the goatherd Peter. She is later sold to a Frankfurt household as a companion to a wheelchair-using heiress, Clara.

Reception

Heidi was a major commercial success, reinforcing Shirley Temple’s box-office dominance in the late 1930s. The film has remained one of the most widely seen adaptations of Spyri’s novel and is regularly broadcast on family channels in the United States and Europe.