My Side of the Mountain (film)

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My Side of the Mountain is a 1969 film adaption of the novel by Jean Craighead George.

The movie was set in Toronto and Knowlton, Quebec. It starred Ted Eccles as Sam.

[edit] Major differences between the book and the movie

• In the book, Sam lives in New York City and runs away to the Catskill Mountains, to stay on land that was once his family's farm. In the movie, he runs away from Toronto, Ontario to live in the Laurentian Mountains outside Knowlton, Quebec; no mention is made of a family homestead.
• In the movie, Sam runs away partly to do experiments with algae, a motivation absent from the book.
• In the movie, Sam brings a lot more equipment: he has a backpack, a map, several books, a metal pan, a microscope and glass slides, binoculars, a canteen, and he buys his leather gloves in town rather than making them.
• In the movie, Sam has a pet raccoon Gus which he brings with him to the mountains.
• In the book, Sam gives his friend the nickname "Bando" because he thinks he is a bandit hiding from the police; in the movie, Bando introduces himself by that name. In the book, Bando is an English teacher who got lost on vacation; in the movie, he is a folk musician who wanders the mountains looking for new music.
• In the movie, Sam's peregrine falcon Frightful is accidentally shot and killed by a hunter. In the book, Frightful is never shot at.
• The movie has a scene where Sam is trapped in his tree by dense snow, and he must dig himself out before the oxygen in his tree runs out; he is saved by Bando coming to look for him. This does not occur in the book.
• Bando and Miss Turner (the librarian) never meet in the book, and Miss Turner never sees Sam's tree. In the movie, Bando brings Miss Turner to the tree for Christmas. (In the book, Sam's father visits him for Christmas instead.)
• At the end of the movie, Sam returns to his family. In the book, Sam's family moves to the mountains with him.