Total Sci-Fi’s Guide to the Incredibly Strange and Obscure in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Movies

The Facts

Written by Ib Melchior, John C. Higgins, based on the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Directed by Byron Haskin
Produced by Aubrey Schenck
Music: Van Cleave
Cast: Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, Adam West, Mona the Woolly Monkey
Running time: 110 minutes

The Plot

Pilot Kit Draper struggles to survive on Mars after crashing on the red planet, with only Mona, the ship’s monkey, for company.

The Lowdown


Prolific fantasy creator Ib Melchior (The Angry Red Planet, The Time Travellers) originally conceived Robinson Crusoe on Mars as a pulp adventure featuring aliens and monsters — the film would probably be a lot more enjoyable if the producers had stuck with that idea instead of trying to ape Destination Moon by portraying their main character’s plight as ‘scientifically authentic’ as possible.

Trapped alone on Mars after a crash with only his space monkey for company, Kit Draper’s initial struggle is for survival: finding shelter and a way to exist on the surface of the red planet (which seems to be aflame in the first shots after the crash). In true Star Trek style, Draper records logs of his progress, so filling in the viewer on what he’s thinking.

This is certainly a colourful movie (check out those crystalline pillars in the background of Draper’s cave!), despite its attempt to adhere to some notion of scientific reality (the story at least tries to come up with a reason why Crusoe can breathe on Mars).

The attacking ships (which are never really explained, but are supposed to be mining ships) look very like the Martian war machines from director Byron Haskin’s previous film, The War of the Worlds. There’s some dispute over whether these were new props or redressed versions of those used previously. Similarly, the sound effect of the alien blast ray is the same as those accompanying the Martian’s destruction of mankind in the previous film.

The first contact situation in which Draper meets a single alien is a bit risible, especially as (like in Dafoe’s original) the alien is just a man dressed as a typical Earth native figure. Again, a failure of imagination drags the film down, despite the wonderfully imaginative alien vistas created in the studio and through location work in Death Valley (at Zabriskie Point). In 1964 no one really knew what Mars looked like (Mariner 4 was a year off, and even then it just supplied black and white images), so Haskins had no choice but to invent something weird and wonderful through Albert Whitlock’s great matte paintings.

A Cold War political reading can be applied to the movie, perfectly validly, but at heart Robinson Crusoe on Mars is an attempt to show man’s first faltering steps on an alien world and the possibilities of what’s out there…

Cult Cast

Paul Mantee came to acting after stints in journalism and the US Navy. Following lots of TV guest shots in the 1950s and 1960s, he made his film debut in Robinson Crusoe on Mars. He later appeared in episodes of Batman, The Time Tunnel, The Invaders and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. One of his last roles before retirement in 1998 was playing a reporter in Apollo 13 (1995).

Adam West was the iconic 1960s TV Batman, a role he still trades on in Family Guy as Mayor West, among many other cartoon voices. A veteran of many TV and film roles across 50 years, his SF, fantasy and horror roles have included episodes of The Outer Limits, Bewitched, and Night Gallery and films like Zombie Nightmare (1986) and Séance (2001).

Director’s Cut

Byron Haskin is best remembered as director of the iconic 1953 version of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds. He began working on movie special effects before directing killer ants movie The Naked Jungle (1954), starring Charlton Heston. In the 1960s he moved to TV, directing six episodes of the original The Outer Limits, including Harlan Ellison’s Demon With a Glass Hand. He was co-producer on the first Star Trek pilot The Cage (1965). He died in 1984, six days before his 85th birthday.


WTF? Moment

The weirdest thing about this futuristic space age drama is the use of simple 1960s technology — such as a bog standard (but then new) cassette tape recorder! There seems to have been little attempt to imagine a future in which technology might have changed and developed — oh no, when we get to Mars we’ll be taking tape recorders with us… Alternatively, there is the moment when stranded astronaut Kit re-invents the bagpipes, as you would do when you’re lost in space…

Behind-the-Scenes

Robinson Crusoe on Mars has inspired two songs. One was written and performed by one of the movie’s actors, Victor Lundin (called Robinson Crusoe on Mars it can be found on his album Little Owl). Singer/songwriter Johnny Cymbal also recorded a song called Robinson Crusoe on Mars, released on his 1964 album The Best of Johnny Cymbal.

Talent Talk

“I was a little overwhelmed with the script, because there was no-one to talk to. A lot of what I did was talking into the little machine they called an Omnicom. It was an awful lot of monologue… that and talking to the monkey! Robinson Crusoe on Mars was a dream come true — I had never been in anything that lasted for more than three days. I was in my element, I loved every minute of it!” — Paul Mantee, interviewed by Tom Weaver, Science Fiction and Fantasy Flashbacks


Availability

Criterion released this on Region 1 DVD (with extras) in 2007, but it’s not available on Region 2.

Online Resources

Political reading of the film
[www.brightlightsfilm.com/42/robcrusoe.php]

Remake

Take Tom Hanks and that basketball from Castaway and drop them on Mars and you’ve got Robinson Crusoe on Mars. This could be remade, much more scientifically accurately, as a stranded astronaut thriller, although Apollo 13 has covered some of the ground.

The Bottom Line

It’s maybe a bit slow, but the fun in Robinson Crusoe on Mars comes when this ‘scientifically authentic’ film goes way off-beam scientifically!

Brian J. Robb