It's 1659. The British aristocrat Robinson Crusoe (Dan O'Herlihy) is a third son with a wish to travel despite his father's objections. He's on trip from Brazil to buy slaves in Africa when his ship is caught in a storm. He is marooned on a deserted island. He finds the shipwreck, salvage some supplies and rescues Sam the cat. He finds Rex the dog on the beach. He would battle loneliness, cannibals, and joined by Friday.Robinson Crusoe is one of those classic novels that gets remade over and over again. This one is pretty good. It doesn't always take advantage of the lush outside shoots. The interior is rather bland. I like the splashes of color from the exterior shoots. Part of the charm of the movie is to see Crusoe change over time. Dan O'Herlihy is able to stretch the character although he doesn't instill the required sympathy. Crusoe is a haunted lonely man on the verge of madness. He's also very an aristocratic englishman. It's not quite as cute as Tom Hanks with a volleyball. The direction isn't daring enough. The camera work is functional. Also the non-stop narration feels like an easy cheat. It's still a well-made movie with an immersive performance.

I did not read Defoe's novel so I can't comment on the merits or the faithfulness of Bunuel's adaptation. I saw this movie at the age of 12 when it first came out at the local movie house. At the time I recall thinking about how fascinating life on an uninhabited island could be and about the loneliness RC must have felt most of the time. Now I can add some of my own recent comments and observations.It aired on TCM the other morning and saw it in a somewhat different light. The book must have contained many passages of mental soliloquy, contemplation and introspection. Such a cerebral book must have been difficult to transfer to the screen, and RC's overarching feeling of boredom can extend off-screen to the audience. The film is part documentary and part travelogue with a great deal of voice-over narration, and moments of genuine excitement are few and far between.Another reviewer mentioned a sexual angle - or lack thereof - but I think I found two latent instances. In the scene where RC puts up a scarecrow to protect his wheat crop, he puts a woman's dress on it, walks away and looks back at a distance, then walks away slump-shouldered, perhaps thinking of female acquaintances past. In the second, Friday finds a woman's dress, puts it on and jumps about for RC's benefit. RC angrily tells him to take it off, perhaps trying to stave off a southern hemisphere version of Greenwich village.All things considered, this movie is the best that could be done, given the limitations of the narrative. In short, I liked it better when I was 12, before the onset of cognitive reasoning.

It's been a very long time since I read Daniel Defoe's novel "Robinson Crusoe," so a good deal of the story matter in the movie seemed relatively fresh to me, although from what I do remember of it the movie is a pretty good adaptation of the novel. It revolves around the most obvious theme of loneliness, as Crusoe deals with life on this deserted island, with only a dog and a cat who also survived the shipwreck as his companions. As such, the movie has every now and then some spiritual reflections (not surprising, since Defoe himself was a Christian and a religious "dissenter") as Crusoe also finds himself having to make peace with God. For the most part all that was well portrayed by Daniel O'Herlihy, who for the majority of the movie is putting on a one man show.One thing that I thought was lacking in this, though (and it's a significant weakness) is any real sense of emotion. Much of the story of Crusoe's time alone on the island is told by a rather cold narration of Defoe's writing, and that basically matched the overall emotional feel of the movie. It was well filmed, and it did a decent enough job of portraying Crusoe's struggles and adjustments, but O'Herlihy never really drew me in to the character and never gave me any feel for him. To be perfectly honest, the only real sense of emotion I got from this revolved around Rex, the dog - his death and the last shots of the film. I admit that as Crusoe walked toward the boat that would finally rescue him I thought "aren't you even going to go to Rex's grave to say good bye?" So the last shot (of Crusoe looking back at the island from the boat and hearing Rex's bark) hit a bit of a nerve with me.Otherwise, it's a technically well made movie; just surprisingly lacking in real feeling. (5/10)

Robinson Crusoe (1954) ** (out of 4) After a shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe (Dan O'Herlihy) finds himself stuck on a deserted island where he must make due with what he has and try to create a new civilization for himself (along with the cat and dog). I've got to say that this film left me pretty cold from start to finish and this is the first time I've been left extremely disappointed in Bunuel. I guess it goes without saying that this isn't the typical kind of films we'd see from him but I think he could have handled the material a tad bit better. My biggest problem is that I never got caught up in the story, the character or any of the situations going on. I found the film to be very distant when it should have been more involving and compelling. The film does feature some very good cinematography, which is a major plus with all the locations. Another bonus is the performance by O'Herlihy who manges to be very good in his one man show. The scene with him and the dying dog was very touching and handled well. The feverish dream sequence with Robinson's father was also well done but these type of scenes were the exception and not the rule.