Ed-Shullivan I can't say that I was too impressed with this 1954 version of Robinson Crusoe. For most of the film the actor Dan O'Herlihy who plays Robinson Crusoe narrates his story to us the audience, what he plans to do to survive and how for many years on the island, his only companions are a cat and a dog.Eventually he has unwanted company on the island which are a dozen or so cannibals who plan to eat one of their own until Robinson Crusoe quietly assists the cannibal captor who literally runs for his life into the path of a gun toting Crusoe who takes care of the two (2) cannibals chasing what becomes Crusoe's new found friend that he calls by the name Friday.So Crusoe teaches Friday the English language and Friday learns quickly that Crusoe considers himself to be the alpha dog and temporarily shackles Friday in fear of his own life until their communication becomes clear that Friday has no intention of ever harming, nor leaving Crusoe, the man who saved his life from his fellow cannibals.Days, weeks, months, years and even decades pass by and Robinson Crusoe accepts his fate until one day the island is inhabited by some white sailors who appear to have their own prisoners they are dealing with on land, while their ship stands only hundreds of yards away from the shoreline. Once Crusoe determines who are the bad guys (mutiny) and who are the good guys Crusoe and Friday lend a helping hand in exchange for their freedom to set sail to the Americas. Will their plan work? Watch the film and find out yourself.I give the film a two thumbs up out of four.

rdoyle29 Bunuel turns in a relatively straightforward adaptation of Daniel Defoe's novel. It's a handsomely mounted technicolor production produced during his Mexican exile period, but shot in English for consumption North of the border. Dan O'Herlihy (best known to modern audiences for "Robocop") stars (the producers wanted Orson Welles, but Bunuel rejected Welles in favour of O'Herlihy whom he saw playing McDuff in Welles's "Macbeth"). O'Herlihy does a fine job and received a Best Actor nomination for his work here. There are almost none of Bunuel's usual touches here ... though a case of kittens born through what appears to be immaculate conception and a Biblical debate between Robinson and Friday seem to gesture at his contempt for the Church.

bkoganbing No matter who does Robinson Crusoe or what interpretation they put upon it, the story of a man cast away for 28+ years on an island with only the company of a reformed cannibal for company, one indispensable component has to be there. The actor playing Crusoe by any name has to be an interesting and talented one capable of holding the audience's interest for a couple of hours. He has very little help in doing so.Dan O'Herlihy who was a fine character actor and never had any great pretense for anything else stars in this adaption of Daniel DeFoe's classic novel from the 18th century. O'Herlihy earned himself a Best Actor Oscar nomination though he had a great career, never got that kind of acclaim for anything he did. I recall him saying that he was happy just to be nominated, he never expected a victory. As a story Robinson Crusoe exists on two levels. First there is the struggle just for physical survival where he can expect no help. DeFoe narrates in the novel and on screen O'Herlihy has good instincts in that direction in making shelter for himself and in gathering food.The second level is the introspective one. The character of Crusoe is a typical English Puritan of the 17th century with very fixed ideas about morality. But you spend almost 30 years without the company of anyone to reinforce those ideas you do a lot of self analysis. Especially after he saves the man he later names Friday who is a cannibal about to be eaten by another tribe of them. Friday is played by Mexican film star Jaime Fernandez and the scenes between O'Herlihy and Fernandez are warm, affectionate, and touching.Nice color cinematography also distinguishes this version of Robinson Crusoe. Though it is O'Herlihy and Fernandez who make it worthwhile viewing.

Robert J. Maxwell Stories about castaways and isolation are usually pretty tough going. Tom Hanks' movie was very slow at times. Even when there are two characters instead of just one, and even when the characters are Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin in "Hell in the Pacific," there are likely to be longueurs. And it's no wonder that no one has done movie called "Walden Pond" -- "First I adzed this, then I adzed that." I've never read Defoe's novel but the movie seems to stick closely to the original, with the elisions necessary in converting a long and episodic novel to a screenplay. The spoken narration helps. In the film, Crusoe gets only two pet animals, a dog, Rex, and a cat, instead of two cats. The single cat in the movie provides the occasion for a joke when she gives birth to a litter of kitten -- "Where did you find the father?" Crusoe is stuck on this Caribbean island for twenty-eight years and I can say seriously that when Rex the dog dies of old age, I've never felt sadder for the death of a fictional dog.I'm going to mostly skip the story. Crusoe almost goes mad with loneliness and when he runs across his native man, Friday, he doesn't derive much comfort from his devoted companion. He and Friday finally make a successful escape from the island.Crusoe is Daniel O'Herlihy, whom I admired a great deal in "Odd Man Out," in which he's a nervous and not particularly bright terrorist in Belfast, and he was fine as a reserved liar in "Home Before Dark." He was nominated or an Oscar for his performance here but he seems strictly functional to me. None of the other performances amount to much. But -- Luis Bunuel, when he was still in his prime? It seems directed by an amateur. When Crusoe gets drunk to celebrate his fifth anniversary of isolation, the periphery of the screen is blurred. Even the absence of expected clichés -- there are no sweeping vistas of the tropical beach -- seem to have been forgotten rather than deliberately avoided. When Crusoe resorts to reading the Bible, I half expected God to appear and tweak Crusoe's nose.But, for all that, it's a gripping movie, easy to be swept into. Ontogeny repeats phylogeny. We watch an ordinary man, who has rescued only one or two small rafts of supplies, reenact the history of Homo sapiens. He learns how to make fire. He learns to domesticate animals and then he domesticates plants like wheat. He learns the art of self protection. He first embraces, then rejects the idea of having a slave, settling for having a willing servant. He finds comfort in the Bible. He discovers that currency is meaningless on the island but it saves his bacon in the end. The last we see of Robinson Crusoe, in 1686, he's dressed in colonial finery and is setting off for England, a wealthy man with his "servant".Defoe was a Puritan. I don't know what he was getting at in this story, if in fact he was getting at anything. But, though the movie looks cheap and easy, it ought to keep a viewer interested enough to follow it through to the end.