Robinson Crusoe on Mars
| Robinson Crusoe on Mars | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Byron Haskin |
| Produced by | Aubrey Schenck |
| Screenplay by | |
| Based on |
Robinson Crusoe 1719 novel by Daniel Defoe |
| Starring |
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| Music by | Nathan Van Cleave |
| Cinematography | Winton C. Hoch |
| Edited by | Terry O. Morse |
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Production
company |
Devonshire Pictures
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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110 minutes |
| Language | English |
Robinson Crusoe on Mars is a 1964 independently made American Technicolor science fiction film in Techniscope, produced by Aubrey Schenck, directed by Byron Haskin, that stars Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, and Adam West. The film was distributed by Paramount Pictures. As the title indicates, it is a science fiction retelling of the classic novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
Commander Christopher "Kit" Draper, USN (Paul Mantee) and Colonel Dan McReady, USAF (Adam West) reach the Red Planet in their spaceship, Mars Gravity Probe 1. They are forced to use up their remaining fuel in order to avoid an imminent collision with a large orbiting meteoroid; they descend in their one-man lifeboat pods, becoming the first humans on Mars.
Draper eventually finds a rock face cave for shelter. He figures out how to obtain the rest of what he needs to survive: he burns some coal-like rocks for warmth and discovers that heating them also releases oxygen. This allows him to refill his air tanks with a hand pump and to move around in the thin Martian atmosphere. On one of his excursions, he finds McReady's crashed pod and dead body.
He also finds their monkey Mona alive. Later, he notices that Mona keeps disappearing and is uninterested in their dwindling supply of food and water. He gives her a salty cracker, but no water. When Mona gets thirsty, he lets her out and follows her to a cave and a pool of water in which edible plant "sausages" grow.
As the days grow into months, Draper slowly begins to crack from the prolonged isolation, at one point imagining an alive, but unspeaking, McReady appearing in his cave. He also watches helplessly as his mothership, an inaccessible "supermarket", periodically orbits overhead; without fuel, the spaceship cannot respond to his radioed order to land.
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Wikipedia