The spaceship Mars Gravity Probe 1 is on a mission to Mars. On board are Commander Christopher "Kit" Draper (Paul Mantee), Colonel Dan McReady (Adam West) and a woolly monkey named Mona. They have to use up all their fuel to avoid a collision with a meteor. They then are forced to eject from their ship and land on the planet surface in separate escape pods.
On his own, for the time being, Draper finds a cave for shelter. He discovers that there are rocks on the planet that burn like coal and release oxygen as a by-product. He figures out that the oxygen can be siphoned into his air tanks thereby renewing his oxygen supply. He now has shelter, warmth and air. Investigating his surroundings Draper finds McReady’s dead body, but Mona the monkey is alive. Draper becomes curious when Mona is not interested in drinking water or the pre-packaged space food in Draper’s meager supplies. Draper follows Mona to a cave that contains a pool of water and an edible plant life.
Eventually Draper begins to go stir crazy being alone on the desolate planet. He starts to hallucinate. On one of his forays Draper finds a small stone slab. Near it he digs up a skeleton with an unusual bracelet on its arm. Further investigation reveals the skeleton to be an alien life form. Draper has found the grave of a murdered alien.
Soon after that Draper sees an alien spaceship land in the distance. At first blush he thinks it may be a rescue ship, however, on closer inspection he realizes it is a slave ship. The aliens appear to be mining the planet. Draper is now aware that his life is in danger should these aliens become aware of his presence.
“Robinson Crusoe on Mars” was released in 1964 and was directed by Byron Haskin. The movie is loosely based on the concept in the book “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe.
The critics liked the film, but audiences never materialized. The film didn’t do very well at the box office. Many attributed this to the title of the movie, ineffective publicity or just that people wanted to see real astronauts instead of movie ones. It was the mid 60’s and real astronauts were all over the place at the time. Since then the film has garnered a lot of fans.
The propaganda for the movie claimed that it was scientifically correct based on known information concerning Mars. Since we virtually knew nothing about Mars than Mars could be whatever you wanted it to be. Whether it was science or magical thinking is up for grabs. If you wanted liquid water, vegetation and oxygen spouting rocks than that’s what you had. Mars was basically what it was believed to be like. Not long after the film was made, November 1964, Mariner 4 was launched. The probe took the first pictures of Mars from space. The probe proved that Mars was basically barren rock.
Despite the poor showing when the film was released “Robinson Crusoe on Mars” is actually a very entertaining movie. The cinematography is good and the sets colorful and imaginative. There is some silly animation of the space ships and the strange round fireballs but they just add a surreal dimension to the film that increases the visual fun of the movie. Added to that Paul Mantee does a great job of holding the movie together all by himself.
Mona was played by a male Woolly Monkey named "Barney". Since Mona was actually a boy he had to wear fur pants to hide his bits and pieces. The scenes where Mona imitates Victor Lundin's agonized gestures whenever the aliens activated the slave bracelets were not something the monkey was taught to do. It began to imitate the actor during these scenes, and the director decided to film these moments. Mona also had a stunt double in the form of a stuffed monkey.
The alien spaceships were fashioned after the ones for “War of the Worlds” 1953, which was also directed by Byron Haskin. The alien edible plant life were pepperoni, the air pills were M & M’s and the alien spacesuits were from “Destination Moon” 1950.