23 Films & TV Shows Set In Switzerland During The 19th Century
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Heidi
🇨🇭 Switzerland 🇩🇪 Germany The 1880sHeidi, is an eight-year-old Swiss orphan who is given by her aunt to her mountain-dwelling grandfather. She is then stolen back by her aunt from her grandfather to live in the wealthy Sesemann household in Frankfurt, Germany as a companion to Klara, a sheltered, disabled girl in a wheelchair. Heidi is unhappy but makes the best of the situation, always longing for her grandfather.
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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
England 🇫🇷 France 🇩🇪 Germany 🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1890sThe game is afoot. — There is a new criminal mastermind at large (Professor Moriarty) and not only is he Holmes’ intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil and lack of conscience may give him an advantage over the detective.
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La guerre dans le Haut Pays
🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1800sLa Guerre Dans le Haut Pays is a period piece set in the winter of 1797-98, during the six days leading up to the fall of Bern and the victory of Napoleon's army, when the Bern government is faced with mixed loyalties from its subjects. The population of the lower valley is divided, but the upper region remains loyal, since they have been given special autonomy and a favorable system of taxation. David, a postman, works between the two regions. His father, who is a hard-line conservative, does not approve of his relationship with Julie, who is from the lower part of the valley. Julie's father, on the other hand, is more open to the new ideas of liberation. As a result of his work, David is exposed to new ideas and becomes a believer in equality and justice.
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Frankenstein
🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1820sIn the early 19th century, Dr. Frankenstein (Patrick Bergin, Sleeping with the Enemy) discovers the secret of life – how to create a perfect man – powerful, intelligent and immune to disease. But something goes wrong in the laboratory and the doctor’s hideous creation (Randy Quaid, National Lampoon’s Vacation) disappears into the night. At first, Frankenstein hoped that the horrible monster would perish in the wilderness, but now he senses that it’s alive and sets out for him. Dr. Frankenstein tracks the creature to the Arctic, where the two must battle to decide who will become the master of the other’s life…or death. “Nobody’s ever done a Frankenstein like this one and nobody’s ever done a better one” (Houston Chronicle).
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Chaplin
California England 🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1970s The 1960s The 1950s The 1940s The 1930s The 1920s The 1910s The 1900s The 1890sEveryone has a wild side. Even a legend. — An elderly Charlie Chaplin discusses his autobiography with his editor, recounting his amazing journey from his poverty-stricken childhood to world-wide success after the ingenious invention of the Little Tramp.
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Frankenstein Unbound
🇨🇭 Switzerland The 2030s The 1810sThe ultimate weapon, claimed to be safe for mankind, produces global side-effects including time slides and disappearances. The scientist behind the project and his car are zapped from the year 2031 to 1817 in Switzerland where he meets Dr. Victor Frankenstein, Mary Shelley and others.
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Haunted Summer
🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1810sFour lovers explore the heights of passion. And the depths of evil. — Authors Lord Byron, Mary Shelley (née Godwin) and Percy Shelley get together for some philosophical discussions, but the situation soon deteriorates into mind games, drugs, and sex. It is a fictionalization of the summer that Lord Byron and the Shelleys, together with Lord Byron's ex-lover Claire Clairmont and his Doctor John Polidori, spent in the isolated Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva. It is there they devise a contest to adduce the best horror story to kill the dullness of summer. It is also there that one of the world's most famous books was given life—Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
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Rowing with the Wind
🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1810sIn the summer of 1816, Percy Shelley, his mistress Mary, and her stepsister Claire visit Lord Byron at Lake Geneva. Byron challenges each to write a horror story, and Mary begins her novel, Frankenstein. She imagines the monster becoming real, and for the next six years, as tragedy befalls those around her, she believes the personification of her imagination is the cause. Against this backdrop, Claire has Byron's baby then is estranged from him and barred from her daughter. Byron and Percy continue their friendship, the one self-centered and decadent, the other wildly idealistic. The Shelleys take up residence near Pisa.
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Gothic
🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1810sConjure up your deepest, darkest fear... now call that fear to life. — The year is 1816. A sprawling villa in Switzerland is the setting for a stormy night of madness. On this night of the "Haunted Summer," five famous friends gather around an ancient skull to conjure up their darkest fears. Poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, Shelley's fiancée Mary Godwin, Mary's stepsister Claire Clairemont and Byron's friend John Polidori spend a hallucinogenic evening confronting their fears in a frenzy of shocking lunacy. Horrifying visions invade the castle - realizations of Byron's fear of leeches, Shelley's fear of premature burial, Mary's fear of birthing a stillborn child - all brought forth in a bizarre dreamscape. They share the terrifying fantasies that chase them through the castle that night. The events of that night later inspired Mary Shelley to write the classic "Frankenstein" and Dr. Polidori to pen "The Vampyre," which became the basis for the creation of Dracula..
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Daisy Miller
🇮🇹 Italy 🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1870sShe did as she pleased. — In this comedy of manners, the American Winterbourne tries to figure out the bright and bubbly Daisy Miller, only to be helped and hindered by false judgments from their fellow friends.
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Third Man on the Mountain
🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1860sConquering the past would be the climb of his life — The thrilling, critically acclaimed account of Rudi Matt (James MacArthur), a young kitchen worker who is determined to conquer the Citadel -- the jagged, snowcapped peak that claimed his father's life.
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Die Käserei in der Vehfreude
🇨🇭 Switzerland The 19th CenturyThe farmers of a village decide to postpone the construction of a new school in profit of a concentration to cheese production. From a novel by Jeremias Gotthelf.
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The Curse of Frankenstein
🇨🇭 Switzerland The 19th CenturyThe creature created by man and forgotten by nature! — Baron Victor Frankenstein has discovered life's secret and unleashed a blood-curdling chain of events resulting from his creation: a cursed creature with a horrid face — and a tendency to kill.
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Magic Fire
🇫🇷 France 🇩🇪 Germany 🇮🇹 Italy 🇨🇭 Switzerland The 19th CenturyDirector William Dieterle's 1956 film biography of classical composer Richard Wagner stars Carlos Thompson, Yvonne De Carlo, Rita Gam, Alan Badel and Valentina Cortese.
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Man to Men
🇨🇭 Switzerland The 19th CenturyThe story of the Swiss soldier, Henri Dunant, who was responsible for the founding of the Red Cross, and who was offered the first Nobel Peace Prize.
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Uncle Kruger
England 🇨🇭 Switzerland 🇿🇦 South Africa The 1900s The 1890sOhm Krüger (English: Uncle Krüger) is a 1941 German biographical film directed by Hans Steinhoff and starring Emil Jannings, Lucie Höflich and Werner Hinz. It was one of a series of propaganda films produced in Nazi Germany attacking the British. The film depicts the life of the South African politician Paul Kruger and his eventual defeat by the British during the Boer War. It was the first film to be awarded the 'Film of the Nation' award. It was re-released in 1944
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The Mountain Calls
🇮🇹 Italy 🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1860sThe Italian mountaineer Carel wants to be the first man to stand on the top of the Matterhorn. Since the climb is very difficult, he agrees to try it together with the British mountaineer Whymper. But due to an intrigue this agreement is dropped and the two man try it on the same day with two different teams and then disaster strikes.
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The Challenge
England 🇮🇹 Italy 🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1860sDramatization of the first climbing of the Matterhorn in 1865.
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Heidi
🇩🇪 Germany 🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1880sShirley's A Little Swiss Miss In The Loveliest Story of Her Career ! — Heidi is orphaned and her uncaring maternal Aunt Dete takes her to the mountains to live with her reclusive, grumpy paternal grandfather, Adolph Kramer. Heidi brings her grandfather back into mountain society through her sweet ways and sheer love. When Dete later returns and steals Heidi away to become the companion of a rich man's wheelchair-bound daughter, the grandfather is heartsick to discover his little girl missing and immediately sets out to get her back.
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Bosko's Picture Show
Nevada California England 🇩🇪 Germany 🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1930s The 1890sBosko runs a movie theater that shows a wacky newsreel with Jack Dumpsey, a slapstick short from Haurel and Lardy, and a turn-of-the-century melodrama starring Honey.
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Eternal Love
🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1800sIn the Swiss Alps of the early 19th century, a couple forced into loveless marriages struggle to find happiness with one another.
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The Fight for the Matterhorn
England 🇮🇹 Italy 🇨🇭 Switzerland The 1860sStruggle for the Matterhorn (German: Der Kampf ums Matterhorn) is a 1928 German-Swiss silent drama film co-directed by Mario Bonnard and Nunzio Malasomma and starring Luis Trenker, Marcella Albani, and Alexandra Schmitt. The film is part of the popular cycle of mountain films of the 1920s and 1930s. Art direction was by Heinrich Richter. Based on a novel by Carl Haensel, the film depicts the battle between British and Italian climbers to be the first to climb the Matterhorn. Trenker later remade the film as The Challenge in 1938.
