Rip Passing Over the Mountain (1896) User Reviews

The last part of the Rip van Winkle miniseries

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 4 September 2013]

Follows Awakening of Rip, in which Jefferson's character wakes up after a 20-year-long sleep after being poisoned from a dwarf-like creature. Rip, aided by a walking stick tries to make it back over the hill he initially came from 20 years ago. He's an old man now struggling to walk and with an incredibly long beard. Can he make it? It's pretty steep. It seems the director wasn't so sure himself as the movie ends with standing halfway on the hill.

I'd really only recommend it to those interested in the very early years of cinema. And even there you'll find more significant and watch-worthy projects than this one.

Rip van Winkle #8

[Tornado_Sam · 17 August 2018]

Rip actually doesn't "pass over the hill/mountain" despite what the title implies. The film actually ends with him halfway to the top of the rock, so apparently he couldn't make it since he could barely walk at all anyway. It's also possible Dickson wanted to end the saga with a cliffhanger. CLIFFhanger! Get it? Yuck Yuck Yuck!

Jefferson once again does a nice job playing Rip as an old man, as he did in the previous installment and when he played the role on the stage--which was how he became selected for the part. It once more pays to see the all the installments put together, because then you'll get a better idea of the narrative and what the filmmakers were trying to do. But the average person nowadays wouldn't really take interest at all anyway and the entire series is more of a curiosity for people interested in the earliest years of cinema.