Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)

Posted by: Redhead on: January 9, 2021

• In: movies | Vintage SciFi
• 16 Comments

 

Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) Directed by Byron Haskin, written by Ib Melchior and John C. Higgings, starring Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, and Adam West, 110 minutes long.

 

I really wasn’t sure what to expect with Robinson Crusoe on Mars.  I knew this movie was from the 60s,  I knew it was a modernized/scifi version of Defoe’s 18th century novel Robinson Crusoe, and I knew this movie filmed and released before we actually knew what the surface of Mars was really like.  And that’s all I knew. 

 

 

I wasn’t expecting a good movie. 

 

And you know what? Compared to movies that came out in the last ten years, well, yes, Robinson Crusoe on Mars sucks.  BUT. like many classic works, you have to adapt your lens, to see it the way people at the time may have seen it.   Once I realized this movie wasn’t about about being stranded on a realistic Mars, but a movie about a man who was stranded somewhere inhospitable, and what he went through to survive, the movie and the story gets far more enjoyable. And the special effects were pretty darn good for the time! So check your 2020 expectations at the doors, folks.

 

Did you read Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in high school? I didn’t, and had to look it up on Wikipedia.  The big plot points of the original are fairly straightforward – experienced sailor gets shipwrecked and makes it to an island where he believes he is alone. How to survive if no one comes looking for him because no one knows he’s alive? Yeah, anyway, he finds that cannibals are using this island to kill their prisoners. One of their prisoners escapes, and he and Crusoe become allies. Not being able to understand the man’s language, Crusoe names him Friday and starts trying to convert the guy to Christianity. Friday is viewed as a loyal servant. They save more of the prisoners and kill the cannibals.  Eventually they are rescued.  

 

Knowing the plot of the original Robinson Crusoe makes plot moments in this movie make SO MUCH MORE SENSE, I’m just sayin’! 

 

What Robinson Crusoe on Mars does very, VERY well, is showing the desolation and loneliness that Kit Draper is facing on Mars.  With only the friendly monkey Mona for company, Kit has to stave off the fears that no one knows how to find him, and that he may never hear another human’s voice again, or see another human again, and there’s a very high chance that he will die alone and far from home.  The scenes of him just walking, and walking, and walking, on desolate plains that are completely devoid of life were quite effective.  The hobbies he invents, to cope with all the nothingness, were relatable in this current day and age of social distancing.

While Kit is nearly starving to death, dying of thirst, and dying of lack of oxygen, Mona has already found water, already figured out what plants are edible, and has already figured out that when burned, the rocks give off oxygen. Luckily, instead of locking her in the cave, it dawns on him to let her out and follow her, to see what she’s discovered.

You need oxygen, but Mona doesn’t??

I can’t fault the movie for not showing the surface of Mars accurately even though it was at the time advertised as being “Scientifically Authentic!”, we simply had no idea at the time. And, I guess it was scientifically authentic that it didn’t show Mars Monsters, or a planet covered in ruins?  I did finally stop yelling at Kit (played by Paul Mantee) to “stop taking your helmet off, dumbass!”, because while we might have known that the atmosphere of Mars was thinner, we had no idea how thin, or how cold.  A year after this movie came out, in 1965, Mariner 4 brough back the first images of the surface of Mars – desolate yes, but also rocky and impossibly for life.

 

On one of Kit’s hikes, he comes across a humanoid skeleton, and the skeleton is wearing heavy black bracelets.  Soon after, he hears the sounds of attacks! He sets up a camera, and hides. (the camera set up was pretty ingenious, actually). Before he can watch the film,  he’s approached by a terrified humanoid alien, and the two of them run for the safety of Kit’s cave. Turns out this new guy is a slave, and the slaves were being attacked by some other aliens. 

 

The slave (played by Victor Lundin) looks right out of Hollywood Central Casting for “random Egyptian”.  The gladiator style sandal, the page boy haircut,  the white kilt he wears.  Oh, and he also wears those black bracelets, which the Slaver Aliens use to track him and attack his location.  The Slaver Aliens are never really explained, which was annoying. I don’t even know if they are called “Slaver Aliens”, but they are aliens who enslave other aliens, so that’s what I’m calling them.

Not knowing what to call him, and not making any attempt to learn his actual name, Kit tells this new ally that his name is Friday, and their friendship begins.  Friday and Mona become quick friends, and Kit starts teaching Friday to speak English. Kit also does everything in his power to get those darn bracelets off, so the Slaver Aliens can’t find them.  But before he can get both bracelets off, the Slaver Aliens attack their cave home, destroying the cave and most of their belongings. Kit, Friday, and Mona escape into the Canals of Mars, and knowing they need water, they head for the polar ice cap. 

their escape into the underground canal system

They get to the polar ice cap, and are shortly rescued thereafter. The movie literally ends five seconds after Kit hears the rescuers on his radio. 

 

Ok, so here’s what the movie did poorly: 

 

The pace.  This is seriously the slowest movie I have ever seen in my life. Yes the scenes of desolation at the beginning were very well done, but they were just. So. unbearably. Slow.  And ok, you’ve shown that 2 second clip of the Slaver Aliens attacking 15 times in a row (for effect!), do you really need to re-show it 30 more times? Oh, I guess you do. (ok, maybe it wasn’t that many times, but the laser beam sound was SO GRATING that it felt like un-ending torture) Everything interesting in the movie happens in the last 20 minutes, could have gotten to the good stuff just a little quicker?

The end. The end is so rushed!  Did the rescuing astronauts ask Kit how he survived? Do they tease him that he smells bad (a la that scene in The Martian)? What did they think of Friday? Was Friday able to share any info about the Slaver Aliens? We’ll never know, because the movie ends before any of those conversations could take place.  Which is too bad.

 

The colonialism.  This is where the screenwriters Ib Melchior and John Higgins got trapped by the original novel they were trying to modernize.  In the original, Friday is referred to as “Crusoe’s servant”, and Crusoe tries to convert him to another religion and makes no effort whatsoever to see Friday as a full person who has agency.  Kit is at least a little nicer!  While Kit isn’t pushy on the religion front, he makes no effort to learn Friday’s actual name, makes no effort to learn a few words in his language, and seems to feel that Friday has to earn the privilege of being seen as an equal.  I have no idea if people watching this movie in the 60s would have thought those things, but my 2020 brain kept screaming “wow, that’s some peak priviledged white guy behavior right there”.

 

My bitchings aside, if you’re looking for a Vintage Movie to watch, you could do a lot worse than Robinson Crusoe on Mars. The writing is very good, the cinematography and visuals are quite good, the feeling of loneliness and desolation is SPOT ON. Yes, the movie is on the slow side, but it’s certainly not a bad movie, and one worth watching and talking about.

 

 

 

Tags: classic, Mars, modern retelling, movie, Vintage SciFi