ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

NewtonFigg I had read the story of Robinson Crusoe before I saw the movie at our 5th run neighborhood theater and found the movie to be a pretty straightforward recreation of the book. It was impressive. I was interested in the story. If there were allegories, I didn't recognize them. Bunuel? Never heard of him. Robinson Crusoe was another on the list of color films, like Disney's Treasure Island and Great Locomotive Chase, The Searchers, Shane, The Command, Sign of the Pagan, Fort Ti, that were much more alluring than the usual B&W fare and better remembered.Now, in the 21st century I watched it again and it lived up exactly to my expectations. Still no allegories, but isn't that a refreshing change? I probably overrate it at 9 because of the nostalgia factor. It would be an ideal movie to take a pre-teen grandson to.

GManfred 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.

Michael_Elliott 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.

MisterWhiplash In maybe his only time of giving into a commercial project, Luis Bunuel, deliciously notorious surrealist and satirist, took off his usual run of Mexican-produced films of the decade and adapted The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. On the surface, if one weren't familiar with the director's works at all, it has the seeming quality of being an average B-movie adventure of a man in solitude who is saved by his man Friday and his own resourcefulness. The story of the cast away has ended up having better days, specifically in Zemeckis's Cast Away, as far as with how the actual details of the story unfurl. It boils down to this: Crusoe gets shipwrecked on an island, takes what he can from the ship (some supplies, actually lots, a few animals), builds a camp, and little by little after the novelty of a deserted island wears off he goes near mad in loneliness. That is until the cannibals arrive, dropping off a man whom Robinson names Friday and quasi-domesticates as his servant-cum-friend. This is a story that even school-children know, and has even appeared as a goof on a Peabody & Sherman cartoon.But the fun in watching this rendition of Crusoe is for fans of the director to see what he does with the material. It's not a perfect affair, truth be told, as Bunuel isn't the greatest director of suspense, particularly in the climax. But what is essential for a film with as basic a plot as this to have is an understanding of what can be subverted, lightly and slightly twisted into personal expression. This is nothing new for many of today's famous filmmakers ala Spielberg or Scorsese, but for Bunuel he approaches it in ways that his best fans will be keen to look for and get in nice quantities. For example, as he is known more often than not as a director of dreams (his best film, Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, has dreams within dreams in savagely playful fashion), we see Crusoe having a dream early on where there's soft gel on the sides of the screen (maybe to appease the producers, who knows), and in it Crusoe dreams of his father pouring sauce or other on a pig, and images of Crusoe in water, cut together and acted in truly classic style. It's probably even one of his better dream sequences, followed up by another later on that features a pretty funny image to boot.Actually, part of what makes Bunuel's Robinson Crusoe so enjoyable is spotting the references to past films- his palm covered with some bugs speaks right away cheerfully to Un Chien Andalou- as well as just mildly absurd usages of animals on screen (how did the cat have kittens?), and even Christian imagery in simply showing Crusoe with his huge beard, which Dan O'Hearlihy sports proudly for most of the film, and even carrying what looks like a cross (!) but turns out to be the stand for a scarecrow. Then there's also the aspect to the bond between Crusoe and Friday, which is almost a pop-art form of one of Bunuel's own treatises on the division of the classes in many of his films (i.e. Viridiana and Exterminating Angel). In a way it works just as well as a simple story anyway, because Bunuel is able to have his cake and eat it, by having a tale that as stilted it might be in its not-quite-high-or-low budget and form of writing/narration at times is fairly gripping in an 'old-school' way, as well as enough room to bring out his flashes of brilliant imagery and jabs of surrealism, and even absurdism.