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Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
Director: Byron Haskin
Writers: Ib Melchior, John Higgins (screenplay)
Cast: Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, Adam West
Director: Adventure, Sci-Fi
I'll be the first to admit that Robinson Crusoe on Mars does get slow at times, and yes, those pesky animated alien ships from War of the Worlds keep doing the same scene over and over and over...But I still really like this film for the human element of it.
I'll tell you specifically why this film speaks to me, it's because of the gentle & caring relationship that Kit (Paul Mantee) has with Mona the woolly monkey. At a time when animals were often thought of as disposable and treated in inhumane ways, this movie has the Commander, sharing his rapidly dwindling oxygen and food with Mona.
Mona counts as a living breathing being in this movie and that's what I remembered most about this movie from my childhood. And of course, as this is inspired by Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe we see one man risk his life to help a free slave. Maybe that's sentimental, but I'll take altruistic movies any day over CG drenched, 'rock em sock em robots'.
Yes the film does get many things wrong about Mars. But guess what? This was made in 1963 right after America launched the first manned space orbit, Mercury...and 1 year before the Mariner 4 Mars probe sent back the first video images of the planet, dashing long held beliefs that Mars might be habitable. At the time the film was made all that was really known of Mars was it's relative size and mass, it's orbit and rotation, it's distance from the sun...and through telescopes they appeared to be red areas that some thought were volcanic in nature and white areas at the poles that suggested ice caps. So at the time this movie was made it was trying to be fairly scientific based on the limited information that was available, while still telling a speculative fictional story of course.
I know it's hard for people to judge films by the past but that's just how this film should be judged. In the 1950s and early 60s most sci fi was aimed at kids or drive-in theater goers, with atomic mutated monsters eating people etc. The big exception was Forbidden Planet. Now I don't put Robinson Crusoe on Mars on the same level as Forbidden Planet. But I think it was a unique sci fi for it's day, that tried to show science being used in the near future and got a lot right.
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Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
Writers: Ib Melchior, John Higgins (screenplay)
Cast: Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, Adam West
Director: Adventure, Sci-Fi
'Stranded on Mars with only a monkey as a companion, an astronaut must figure out how to find oxygen, water, and food on the lifeless planet.'
I'll be the first to admit that Robinson Crusoe on Mars does get slow at times, and yes, those pesky animated alien ships from War of the Worlds keep doing the same scene over and over and over...But I still really like this film for the human element of it.
I'll tell you specifically why this film speaks to me, it's because of the gentle & caring relationship that Kit (Paul Mantee) has with Mona the woolly monkey. At a time when animals were often thought of as disposable and treated in inhumane ways, this movie has the Commander, sharing his rapidly dwindling oxygen and food with Mona.
Mona counts as a living breathing being in this movie and that's what I remembered most about this movie from my childhood. And of course, as this is inspired by Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe we see one man risk his life to help a free slave. Maybe that's sentimental, but I'll take altruistic movies any day over CG drenched, 'rock em sock em robots'.
I know it's hard for people to judge films by the past but that's just how this film should be judged. In the 1950s and early 60s most sci fi was aimed at kids or drive-in theater goers, with atomic mutated monsters eating people etc. The big exception was Forbidden Planet. Now I don't put Robinson Crusoe on Mars on the same level as Forbidden Planet. But I think it was a unique sci fi for it's day, that tried to show science being used in the near future and got a lot right.
.