Robinson Crusoe on Mars ***½ (1964, Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, Adam West) – Classic Movie Review 5416

A daft exploitation movie title hides director Byron Haskin’s imaginative, intelligent and involving 1964 Sci-Fi version of Daniel Defoe’s classic tale with Paul Mantee as Commander Kit Draper, a US astronaut whose craft is afflicted by a meteor and he is left stranded on a desert Mars.

Happily, Mantee, who survives with Mona the Monkey (played by The Woolly Monkey), eventually finds his Man Friday (Victor Lundin), who is an equally lost alien.

This Forbidden Planet-type movie is filmed with much style by director Haskin, is nicely shot in widescreen and Technicolor by Winton C Hoch, much of it at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley, and acted with considerable conviction.

Co-star Adam West, as Mantee’s fellow spaceman Colonel Dan McReady who is killed in the meteor incident, of course went on to success and lasting fame as Sixties TV’s Batman.

It runs 110 minutes (96 minutes cut), is made by Devonshire, is released by Paramount, is written by Ib Melchior and John C Higgins, is produced by Aubrey Schenck, is scored by Nathan Van Cleave, has special effects by Lawrence W Butler, and is set designed by Hal Pereira and Arthur Lonergan.

The Martian spacecraft come from Haskin’s The War of the Worlds (1953), while the aliens are dressed in the spacesuits from Destination Moon (1950)

Victor Lundin, also known as legionnaire Vallejo in Beau Geste (1966), died on 29 June 2013, aged 83. Paul Mantee died on 7 November 2013, aged 82.

RIP beloved Adam West.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5416

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