Directed by: Byron Haskin.
Written by: John C. Higgins & Ib Melchior based on the novel by Daniel Defoe.
Starring: Paul Mantee (Cmdr. Christopher 'Kit' Draper), Victor Lundin (Friday), Adam West (Col. Dan McReady), The Wooley Monkey (Mona).
Robinson
Crusoe on Mars is about as cheesy as you expect a movie with that title to be.
It’s also a hell of a lot of fun, and at times genuinely moving. The film was
directed by Byron Haskin, who directed on the great 1950s sci-fi films, The War
of Worlds, and before that had been an F/X guru in the 1940s, and before that,
had worked as a cinematographer stretching back to the silent era. The visual
look of Robinson Crusoe on Mars, shot in California’s Death Valley, is eerie.
Using the clear blue sky as a natural blue screen, Haskin makes Mars’ sky red
and foreboding. Strangely, Daniel Defoe’s classic tale of a man trapped alone
of the desert island makes an easy transition to Mars. This may not be a great
film, but it’s an interesting one.
The
film opens with Kit Draper (Paul Mantee) and his partner Dan McReady (Adam
West), alongside their trusty monkey Mona, circling Mars in the hope of
gathering information about it. But something goes wrong, and then have to
eject in their pods while they let the ship orbit. Their plan is to rejoin
their ship when they are out of danger. But they have to take separate ones
down, and while Kit makes it, his crashes, so it won’t be of use later. McReady
isn’t even that lucky. So Kit has to spend his time on Mars alone, with no one
but Mona to keep him company. At first, he thinks his death is inevitable –
it’s only a matter of time before he runs out of air, water and food. But
eventually, he’ll figure out how to get what he needs to survive on Mars. Companionship
is what he really needs though, and Mona simply isn’t enough. He starts to go a
little mad – but is essentially rescued when he meets Friday (Victor Lundin),
essentially a slave on Mars used for mining. His odd appearance, making him
look like an Egyptian in the time of the Pharaohs, is off-putting at first, but
Lundin wins you over. We never see the actual Martians who have enslaved them –
just their ships, which look almost exactly like the ones in War of the Worlds,
but move with a herky jerky motion that is distracting, but memorable. They can
track Friday through the bracelets they have forced him to wear. But Kit is
determined to not let them catch his new friend – and the three of them
(including Mona, of course), try to outrun them.
I
admit, when the movie started, I thought I was in trouble. The opening scenes,
on the ship, are not very good – marred by the ham-fisted acting by West in
particular. West redeems himself later, when he appears as a creepy apparition
to Kit, but those first scenes were not good. Once we get to Mars however, the
movie picks up. Mantee was a fairly young, inexperienced actor when he made
this film, but he does a great job, with a difficult role. As we have seen time
and again, it’s hard for an actor when he’s the only one on screen for an
extended period of time – they have no one to act off of. Though Mona the
Monkey is clearly a talented monkey actor, she isn’t much help. And just when
things start to become a little dull, Friday comes in, and saves the final act.
The
film isn’t great – it won’t live in my memory like The War of the Worlds does.
But it is well made, visually appealing from start to finish, with many
creative special effects and carried by Mantee’s performance. You most likely
already know if you want to see a movie called Robinson Crusoe on Mars. If you
do, you won’t be disappointed.
