A surprisingly straightforward adaptation of Defoe's classic novel from cinema's master of the surreal, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is firstly in need of a spruce up as the print I saw was blurry to the point of distraction.
Journeyman actor Dan O'Herlihy in the role of Crusoe is naturally called upon to carry the film and he pretty much delivers the kind of performance you'd expect a journeyman actor to deliver; bland, unremarkable but inoffensive. He sucks in his tummy so that his rib cage juts out like the prow of a boat, while his louche character shows a surprising aptitude for survival given that he never engaged in any kind of physical labour prior to his calamitous voyage which, Bunuel suggests, was undertaken with the object of securing slaves for sale back in the homeland.
Some of the scenery, filmed presumably on the Mexican coastline, is breathtaking (even if it is blurry), and provides an engaging diversion when the film plods, which it does for much of the time. We see Crusoe salvaging materials from the wreckage of the ill-fated ship, building a shelter, fetching water, puzzling over how the island's sole cat managed to get herself pregnant, baking bread, getting drunk and a little teary-eyed. It's all a little hum-drum to be honest (although the scene where Crusoe, in the grip of loneliness, shouts into a valley just to hear a human voice his own speak back to him, is a memorable moment), but things do at least pick up a bit when Man Friday washes up on the coast, intended as the main course of the cannibals who live on the neighbouring island (who obviously felt like grabbing a takeaway to eat out that day).
This being a Bunuel film, there's obviously stuff going on under the surface, much of it to do with the nature of Crusoe's relationship with and eventual questioning of God, and for what purpose he has been set down on a godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere; a sexual undercurrent is also present let's face it, after 28 years it would be unnatural if it wasn't Crusoe dresses his scarecrow in a woman's dress and then longingly fondles its hem and then, when Friday innocently dons it as a hunting garb, staunchly resists the homo-erotic temptation that is (rather timidly this is the fifties, after all) thrown in his path. And, this being a Bunuel film, we are of course treated to a somewhat surreal hallucination sequence suffered by Crusoe as he lies sick in his shelter.
More an interesting curio than a work of much worth, it's a film that's worth watching simply for its rarity value.
Journeyman actor Dan O'Herlihy in the role of Crusoe is naturally called upon to carry the film and he pretty much delivers the kind of performance you'd expect a journeyman actor to deliver; bland, unremarkable but inoffensive. He sucks in his tummy so that his rib cage juts out like the prow of a boat, while his louche character shows a surprising aptitude for survival given that he never engaged in any kind of physical labour prior to his calamitous voyage which, Bunuel suggests, was undertaken with the object of securing slaves for sale back in the homeland.
Some of the scenery, filmed presumably on the Mexican coastline, is breathtaking (even if it is blurry), and provides an engaging diversion when the film plods, which it does for much of the time. We see Crusoe salvaging materials from the wreckage of the ill-fated ship, building a shelter, fetching water, puzzling over how the island's sole cat managed to get herself pregnant, baking bread, getting drunk and a little teary-eyed. It's all a little hum-drum to be honest (although the scene where Crusoe, in the grip of loneliness, shouts into a valley just to hear a human voice his own speak back to him, is a memorable moment), but things do at least pick up a bit when Man Friday washes up on the coast, intended as the main course of the cannibals who live on the neighbouring island (who obviously felt like grabbing a takeaway to eat out that day).
This being a Bunuel film, there's obviously stuff going on under the surface, much of it to do with the nature of Crusoe's relationship with and eventual questioning of God, and for what purpose he has been set down on a godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere; a sexual undercurrent is also present let's face it, after 28 years it would be unnatural if it wasn't Crusoe dresses his scarecrow in a woman's dress and then longingly fondles its hem and then, when Friday innocently dons it as a hunting garb, staunchly resists the homo-erotic temptation that is (rather timidly this is the fifties, after all) thrown in his path. And, this being a Bunuel film, we are of course treated to a somewhat surreal hallucination sequence suffered by Crusoe as he lies sick in his shelter.
More an interesting curio than a work of much worth, it's a film that's worth watching simply for its rarity value.