cliffcarson-1 This film is so beautifully crafted that it deserves to be recognized as one of the most inspiring and uplifting films ever made. You cannot watch The Other Side of the Mountain and possibly feel sorry for yourself. The film demands the viewer to find his or her own strength within no matter what his circumstances are. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN was a surprise hit for Universal back in 1975. With no advanced publicity, the studio hurried it into movie theaters after a private screening at Universal that left all it's top executives in tears. I remember it as "the film that would not go away". Word of mouth spread about how effective and moving it was keeping The Other Side of the Mountain playing in various movie houses off and on for years. This new DVD transfer under the VAULT SERIES collection is GORGEOUS. The sound crisp and the widescreen colors intact. I think the film holds up better today than it did in 1975. It may not be a critics picture but The Other Side of the Mountain works in the way THE SOUND OF MUSIC works or TITANIC or even Douglas Sirk's IMITATION OF LIFE. Yes, it's glossy, but the story touches on all the elements that a person going through this experience would face in reality. Only the hardest of heart will not be moved. Without giving too much of the plot away, the main character is forced to deal with an accident that leaves her paralyzed from the shoulders down. There's the ineffective parents who can only give her love and little else. The best friend that reminds her of how bad everything is. The boyfriend who dumps her because he cannot come to terms with her handicap and then the man who re-enters her life to reconnect her with the spirit she thought she had lost. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN is a movie about the individual, a loner on her own path and the struggles she must endure and overcome in order to find her true spirit. This film contains Beau Bridges best performance. The entire film rests on the shoulders of Marilyn Hassett who holds the film together triumphantly. It's a stirring performance that inspires hope, not pity. A lot of top notch supporting work her also, Dabney Coleman, Nan Martin, Belinda Montgomery and the wonderfully funny Dori Brenner. The effervescent score by Charles Fox is one of his best and enhances the beauty of David Walsh's stunning cinematography and the emotion of Larry Peerce's sensitive direction. This film should be in the library of every veterans hospital in this country, that's how important it is. Definitely deserves to be reevaluated. I recently showed this film to a friend from Lebanon and even though he figured out the ending before the film was over, he still ended up crying like a baby. And just for the record, NOBODY makes crying look more beautiful than Marilyn Hassett.

jTube The early to mid 1970s were an interesting time for movie-making and some of the films from that era can be fun to re-visit. While not on a par with Summer of '42 or Love Story, this film has some charms that make it worth another look.Made to reach for some of the box office success of the syrupy romance Love Story, The Other Side of the Mountain tells the true story of Jill Kinmont, the teen-aged downhill skier with Olympic gold in her sights who's dealt a full Kleenex box worth of tragedies.Beautiful cinematography (although the prints I've seen lately have been dirty) takes us through her 1950s teenhood in the Eastern Sierras, full of boys, BFFs and her steely determination to win in high school ski meets.Although the tale of a vivacious girl becoming crippled is one of the biggest clichés in movies, Jill's paralyzing injury, the result of a ski race, is still memorable. In a fall on the slopes (staged unconvincingly by turning the camera on its side) Jill goes from hard-charging athlete to high-level quadriplegic, paralyzed from her chest down, left with no use of her hands, and dependent on others for every basic and intimate task.We see her imprisoned in traction, straining to move her wheelchair, helpless in a swimming pool, fretting about the medical corset that keeps her upright before a visit from her then boyfriend. But through Marilyn Hassett's portrayal, we see the same strength and determination that made her a ski champ re-emerge as she learns to live her new life on wheels. She pushes to complete her education and fights to become the first paralyzed teacher in the state. Throughout, she's supported by her family and the James Dean-ish hot-dog skier, Dick Buek, played by Beau Bridges in a likable performance. Buek spares Jill the hand-wringing weepy treatment over her plight and instead challenges her to make a life with what's she's got left. Which, it turns out, is a lot.This movie overall is not one for the ages. Larry Peerce and the scriptwriter (David Seltzer, whose next film was The Omen!) never stray from the formula, and give their actors some very stilted lines to work with. But instead, look in the corners – look at Marilyn Hassett's moments of flint underneath the pink sweaters and girly vulnerability. Look at Beau Bridges's squinty grins and twitchy physicality. Think about what it takes to turn the page on an athletic life and live in a body that you can't feel, facing each day in an electric wheelchair. And reflect that it's the story of a real person.Unfortunately this Universal release seems to have dropped off the face of the earth: I haven't seen it on any TV schedule in a long time, the VHS release is out of print and there's no DVD in site. I'm beginning to think it was a casualty of Universal's film vault fire in 2008, although the studio claims it had copies of everything. This movie was the 9th top-grossing film the year it was released, just ahead of Tommy.

Deputyj357 My girlfriend and I watched the movie, a few years later I even swiped one of Dick's lines from the movie, I told my girlfriend "I don't care if you walk, crawl or slither on your belly like a snake up the isle." It was a few years later that she went up the isle in a wheelchair, she had MS when I met her and took her from me twenty five years later. I would like to thank Jill and Marilyn for their story and performance to help us along. I am a cross between her cowboy and Mad Dog and we had a good time together while it lasted. We knew each other for twenty five years and were together for nineteen, I took care of her as a caregiver for seventeen of those nineteen until 1997 when I lost her to the MS. Again, thank you Jill and Marilyn you helped us a lot. Steve

yenlo Even though about three quarters of the way through, this movie begins to run out of steam it still is an exceptional film. The ski equipment and clothing were dead on for the time period and adds much to the picture. Even though it was partly about skiing a person watching this doesn't have to be a skier or have ever skied to enjoy it. Superior to the sequel. A must see as far as human interest movies go.