Il signor Robinson Crosuè

From the time Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden , man has vainly sought to find solace , comfort and earthly pleasure in an artificial world of his own creation . Down through the ages has come that eternal heritage - the urge in every man to turn his back on so - called civilization , to get back to nature and revel in the glories and freedom of a primitive paradise . Three friends ( a kind Douglas Fairbanks, William Farnum, and Earl Brown ) aboard a boat are going to chase tigers at Sumatra . They do a bet that nice Fairbanks can live on a desert island for a year and will have good life without being left any refinements of civilization . While his friends stake he will be tied on a pole and eaten by cannibals . Lucky for him , a native ( Maria Alba) arrives and saves him . Meantime friendly Fairbans puts on a tree ¨arrived on island June first ¨ and his friends at Sumatra get firearms permit . This will allow the gentlemen firearms into the Dutch East Indies to hunt tigers . At the ending the native girl dances in the Ziegfeld Follies show .

The players with Mr. Douglas Fairbanks include Mr William Farnum , Mr Earl Brown , Miss Maria Alba and native chiefs, tribes men and native girls in Tahiti , Fiji , Samoa , and the Marquesas islands . Charming Douglas Fairbanks steals the show as he bounds and leaps , flies and run ; in addition he is the screenwriter of this rollicking adventure based on a story by Elton Thomas . The movie contains brief nudism scenes , pre-Hays code , reflected on water in charge of Maria Alba and amusing scenes about antics between a sympathetic monkey, dog and a goat . Atmospheric and evocative musical score by the classic Alfred Newman . The picture is professionally directed by A. Edward Sutherland . He is an expert on all kind of genres as suspense as ¨The invisible woman (1940)¨ , and his specialty is the comedy with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy vehicles as ¨Flying deuces ¨ and the Bud Abbot and Lou Costello's debut titled ¨ One night in the Tropics (40) ¨ and directed a Christmas classic movie titled ¨ Beyond Christmas (40) ¨ . Rating : 5,5 . Acceptable and passable .

I certainly don't agree that this film is over-long. I found it hugely enjoyable from beginning to end. Of course it is a load of nonsense, but I don't think it was intended to be "Hamlet".

An American leaps off his luxury yacht with nothing, except his trusty dog, to learn to survive on a deserted tropical island. And he does so magnificently - creating his own world with an ingenuity that would put Gilligan and co. to shame. The art direction is truly outstanding. And the dog is great, but tends to be up-staged by a superbly talented monkey - that can even milk a goat! When other humans arrive things become a bit dodgy politically - this is definitely both racist and sexist.

But through it all runs Fairbanks' wondrous energy. Nice location photography, unusual for its day. This evidently caused problems for the sound-recording. I suspect all the location footage was shot silent and the sound dubbed on afterwards - the lip-synching is sometimes poor. Good use of music, by Alfred Newman, again quite advanced for an early talkie. This film is tremendous fun!

This often-overlooked adventure comedy is really quite fun.The plot,which was evidently written by the star under a different name,has Douglas Fairbanks,on a yachting trip to the south seas with wealthy friends suddenly challenged on a wager to spend a year on a tropical island with nothing to aid him but a hunting knife.That is the plot.Simple and yet enough to launch Fairbanks on a "Robinson Crusoe-like" adventure as he cleverly and in acrobatic fashion hews out a comfortable existence for himself.Does he find a loyal companion?Yes and it is native girl Maria Alba whom he names Saturday.As their romance develops there are typical dangers to be faced; storms,hostile natives etc.Ably directed by longtime silent veteran Edward Sutherland this picture is a delight for Fairbanks fans and adventure buffs.

Douglas Fairbanks and his friends are yachting near a remote tropical island. On a lark, Fairbanks bets his friends that without any supplies, he can make a ideal life for himself. They agree to return later for him to check on his progress and so Fairbanks and his dog jump overboard--swimming to their new home.

Once on the island, Fairbanks seems excited by the prospect of creating his own home and civilizing the place. Soon, he has all the comforts of home and is quite happy--having rigged up all kinds of conveniences and really cool labor-saving devices. However, out of the blue arrives a man (who he of course christens 'Friday') and a young lady who has run away from an arranged marriage on her own island. Suddenly, his tropical getaway has become a rather crowded place! Overall, it's an amazingly interesting film considering that mostly it consists of Fairbanks doing a monologue. The gadgets helped but the script was well-written and interesting. Not a bad film at all, as it's unique and a nice variation on the old Daniel Defoe novel.

As you watch the movie, you may be a bit surprised by the nudity. While the film certainly isn't chock full of it, the film illustrates that in the days before the adoption of a strengthened Production Code in 1934, films were a lot more liberal in their sensibilities than we'd usually assume--much more so than even most films of the 1960s. The 1930s certainly was NOT a time of prudishness and repression--at least not the first part of the decade.

By the way, I have seen many silent Fairbanks films. However, with this sound film you can hear why he perhaps didn't make more talking pictures, as his voice is rather thin and high-pitched--certainly not the voice you'd expect from a matinée idol--as he was in the 1920s. But, despite this limitation, he was an amazingly spry man of nearly 50--moving about like a much younger man--almost like he did in the old days of THE THIEF OF BAGDAD and THE MARK OF ZORRO. This, by the way, turned out to be his second to last film.

An enjoyably offbeat story and a fun role for Douglas Fairbanks make "Mr. Robinson Crusoe" an entertaining light feature. The story is kept as simple as possible, because the highlights are Fairbanks' athleticism, his character's wide variety of gadgets and animal companions, and Maria Alba as the very endearing Saturday.

The story is never intended to be taken seriously, but it certainly works as entertainment. It starts with Fairbanks's character accepting a bet that he and his dog can survive on an isolated desert island. A long stretch of the movie is devoted simply to showing his numerous inventions and tricks for surviving in the wild, while at the same time he makes several animal friends. This part works surprisingly well, and plenty of imagination went into all the devices and such. Of the animals, the monkey is particularly entertaining, and is rather talented itself.

Fairbanks does quite well carrying the load during the parts in which he has no human to talk to. Once the more action-oriented part begins, he is of course in familiar territory, and at least in this one feature he looks just about as energetic and youthful as ever.

The most action-oriented sequences are interspersed with the tenderer scenes with Alba's character, which makes for an interesting contrast during that part of the movie. This is the kind of movie that is very enjoyable if you are in the mood for something a little different, and/or for anyone who has fond memories of Fairbanks's fine silent-era classics.