Mr. Robinson Crusoe
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Mr. Robinson Crusoe, released in 1932, is one of the few black and white "talky" films featuring Douglas Fairbanks, who also produced the film. Directed by A. Edward Sutherland, a veteran silent film director. Steve Drexel (played by Fairbanks) shows a fiery optimism and can-do spirit that matches the Fairbanks screen persona that appears in his most popular films.
[edit] Plot Summary
The film opens with a title card that reads "From the time Adam and Even were banished from the Garden of Eden, man has vainly sought to find solace, comfort and earthly pleasures in an artificial world of his own creation. Down through the ages has come that eternal heritage of 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."
The Fairbanks character Steve Drexel voluntarily strands himself on a deserted island on a bet. He intends to re-create civilization (in the form of New York) and carves a miniature city of 52nd Street and Park Avenue out of the jungle. Drexel is befriended by his dog, a native monkey, and a wild goat that is captured in one of his traps. He attempts to cultivate a native as his Man Friday from Robinson Crusoe, but fails as the native escapes.
A woman played by actress Maria Alba is trapped in one of his devices. He names her Saturday and she becomes the love interest of the film. In an attempt to communicate with Saturday, he tries German, Spanish, and then Pig Latin. Over the course of the film, she slowly learns rudimentary English.
Eventually, the hostile natives on a nearby island attack the Fairbank's settlement at the behest of the men that bet against the main character. The hero defeats the hostile natives, but ends up escaping with the girl on the yacht that brought him there. He takes her back to New York where she performs to an appreciative crowd in the Ziegfield Follies.
[edit] Self Reliance
The lead character exemplifies the can-do spirit of early twentieth-century America. Drexel launches his subjugation of the jungle by creating construction tools including an axe made from a sharpened shell lashed to a wooden branch. He uses the axe to make a shovel, plow, bow, arrows, saw, table, and many more items. Drexel speaks to a monkey in much the same way Tom Hanks speaks to the soccer ball in the later film Cast Away. He explains to the monkey he learned his survival skills from his time in the Boys Scouts and Dan Beard's American Boy's Handy Book. At the time, the book was a popular young adult wilderness and outdoor survival skills manual.
In recreating civilization, the main character even creates an 18-hole golf course on the island.
