Robinson Crusoe (1954)

A rare Bunuel made in English. It is a film where Bunuel respects Christianity, probably due to deference to Daniel Defoe. Two important facets: the female cat breeds without a male in sight. and Crusoe hears his dead dog, Rex, bark as he departs from the island. Orson Welles was originally cast as Crusoe but Bunuel found him to be too fat. Herlihy was chosen as he had played with Welles in Welles' "Macbeth."

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.

I am sure that fans of director Luis Buñuel probably have very mixed feelings about this film. On the one hand, it's an exceptionally well made film from start to finish, but on the other, it's way too "normal" for the usually anarchic and often surreal director. In other words, the fact that this is a relatively straight retelling of the classic Daniel Defoe story may be held against it. There are no eyes being cut with razors, no devil coming to tempt Robinson nor is there any sexual chemistry between him and Friday--all touches you might expect from Buñuel. However, I am not a huge fan of the director's odd films--though I have enjoyed several of his more "approachable" films. So, it's not surprising that I liked this film very much. It was a fine quality product throughout. I also liked that in this version, Robinson is NOT a perfect man or some sort of saint--he's very flawed--especially in his initially paternalistic attitude towards Friday. It had a lot to say about slavery and the tendency to see all the natives as "savages". Well done--well directed and especially well acted by Dan O'Herlihy. A touching and interesting film.

Well of course I'm not talking about Robinson (he's actually quite "alone" most of the time, as you surely know), but about the movie adaptation. There have been quite a few (even the Tom Hanks starring "Cast Away" can be counted in, if you want to), so why is this different and/or better? Well the thing is, that this movie sure worked when it came out, with some very nice dialog, some funny scenes and a great central performance. The question remains, how this will be received by an audience that is more than well aware of the Robinson story. Will they be bored? I guess some might and probably will find the movie somewhat boring. Not me though. Mr. Bunuel shows again, what he's made of. And while this isn't his best work or anywhere near that, this is more than entertaining (with a few stabs at the church/God). You might know the story, you might have watched others play Robinson, but this (a bit camp) movie is worth your time!