Q: I’m looking for more information on a former Swiss producer and cinematographer called Ernst Albrecht Heiniger. He died in Los Angeles July 19th 1993. What I know is that he was working with Walt Disney from 1952–1958 and made different short movies for Disney Studios. For two of those movies (Ama Girls, 1957) (Grand Canyon, 1958) he won an Oscar®. What we also know is that in 1953 he made a short movie in Switzerland, also for Disney Studios. A story about a young boy with a cowbell, based on a famous children book called A Bell for Ursli.
This year, Swiss director Xavier Koller, who also won an Academy Award®, made a new version of that movie, which is running in Swiss theaters right now. What we found out is that the main actors from the original movie in 1953 are still alive. They were young kids back then and never got to see that movie in their lives. I'm searching desperately for a copy of that movie, which apparently was a huge success as an opening movie for theaters in America. My question: Do you know where I could find a copy of that movie, or do you have a contact, where I possibly would find more information on that particular film? I have the assumption, that the movie is called Switzerland and was released in 1954.
Curdin, Chur, Switzerland
A: Ernst Heiniger was the cinematographer for the Disney documentary, Grand Canyon (1958), as well as three films in the People and Places series—Ama Girls, Switzerland (1955), and Japan (1960)—and the CircleVision film, The Magic of the Rails, made for the Swiss Federal Railways in 1965. Disney never made a film based on A Bell for Ursli.