404 Robinson Crusoe on Mars

[TheRanchHand]

I bet this trailer came off the laserdisc. If I remember right, they had a second audio commentary over the trailer with RCOM #1 fan. Or maybe it was the RCOM theme song by Johnny Cymbal. Either way, hope they include all that notalgic goodness on the DVD.

[HerrSchreck]

Gorgeous presentation, beautiful transfer (the disc is dedicated to the memory of John's father Saul, who was obviously a huge fan).

I'd never seen this film believe it or not (huge sci fi fan & gigantic library of stuff & never RCoM), and it felt very PLANET OF THE APES-like: the ship crash, the slow trek towards water & food racing against supply depletion, the attempt at "what would it really be like" realism, the use of real desert locales... the little mokey in the spacesuit topped it all off. Now I hafta check when Boulle wrote his novel-- remember of course that PLANET APES featured chimps zipping around in flying suits in a highly sophisticated, automted world, complete with their own spaceships.

Hmmm...

As to the film, a charming little piece... not exactly Tarkovskyesque meditation on loneliness & isolation, and not exactly standard-throttle quality sci-fi or "fantastic"/fantasy either. Resists categorization, was good but it wasn't all I thought itd be. Beautiful design, and would have rather seen this resto in the cinema, maybe after smoking a chong... as I'm sure many who are and were filled with nostalgia did when first seeing it when it came out in 1964. Love those red-orange-black skies. I was expecting a bit more owing to it's awesome reputation round the Janus neck of the woods. Still owrth it though, and if you're any kind of a fan of the film you'll be in total paradise. Very handsome, and meticulously restored with a lot of love. 2nd time I've seen them specify 4k telecine *other time 7Samurai I think??).

[manicsounds]

2nd time I've seen them specify 4k telecine *other time 7Samurai I think??).

Yi Yi, Life Aquatic.
not Seven Samurai

[HerrSchreck]

And I dont own AQUATIC or YI YI. Ah the dangers of posting when running on 1 hr of sleep over the preceding 48 hrs. Now I hafta go back & figure out where the fuck I read that.

On a totally differnt note:

Humbly and without any sarcasm (and with respect to those who worship this film), I have a genuine request-- could someone who sees this film in highly exalted terms rhapsodize a bit about how and why this film moves them? I liked it very much, but I felt like I was missing out on a gigantic party of the sort I'm usually pretty in tune to. It's a lovely and very smoothly crafted film with much to commend it, and some charm here and there... but I couldn't even put it near my Top 50, let alone seeing it in the incredible emotional terms that some do. And I love so much of so many different kinds of SF & fantastic film, high & lowbrow, from every era. I'd just love to read an unabashed bit of anguished, fist beating "You just don't understaaaaannnd man!" like I and others do over films they just love so much, and which many clearly feel the same for this one here.

[Person]

I think that the powerful effect the film has on some people is down to the source: Defoe. The image of a man alone, toiling in the dirt, not giving in, using his ingenuity and creating his environment. Take this to an extreme - on Mars - and you have upped the ante. RCOM is a family-friendly film, not a dark parable. There is a Twilight Zone episode where Jack Warner is imprisoned on an asteroid and is giving an android female (what is called again?). RCOM isn't in that tone. It's a fun, Sunday afternoon piece of fantasy - one of the great examples of that breed of movie - and it stands up very well photographically, as do the effects.

As for the transfer, 4K telecine of the A/B 2-perf interpositive rolls with digital repairing is the way all Techniscope movies should be transfered to DVD. The LD transfer was stunning for its time and so I can imagine how the DVD looks. A long, long wait, but totally worth it. Long suffering fans will experience glossolalia, no doubt.

[HerrSchreck]

You don't sound like one of the True Believers-- you seem, like me, to be someone looking across the way at all that RCoM Love, seeing that it is indeed there, and guessing what lies within and beneath it. I want a hardcore true believer who feels the way Saul Turrell clearly felt; I wanta try & set my receiver to their dial and see if the film comes in for me like it does for them. It wouldn't be the first time I've been taught how to love a film whose "potential emotional sublimity" eluded me initially. It's happened for films I initially truly hated, like THE RAVEN (w Karloff & Lugosi). Then there are some films which some love and there's just no fucking hope, like HEAVEN CAN WAIT. God I can't stand that thing.

But again-- I did like RCoM... I just don't see the reasons for it's hyperexaltation, or why it would be the fave of the venerable prez of Janus Films. I just want to hear a "typical rhapsody" for RCoM. And not from a "reviewer".

[ByMarkClark.com]

I loved this movie as a kid, but I don't think it holds up that well. I'm on the fence about whether or not to buy the disc. I'm sure Criterion's presentation will do the film a world of good.

Maybe I'll put in on my Xmas list!

[HerrSchreck]

DOESNT ANYBODY TRULY LOVE THIS FILM??? What about all you guys who swooned when this was announced?

SOmebody gush!

[Luke M]

I just watched this for the first time and I thought it was alright. I don't know what to say, this may be a movie that relies on nostalgia. It was quite a bit better than most B-movies I've seen.

As for the Criterion, the transfer is top notch. I've been watching nothing but HD discs for the past couple weeks so I thought I would've been spoiled. Not so would be the case. This transfer is very clean.

[TheRanchHand]

I love this film.

I grant you, there is some nostalgia only in that I am facinated by the innocence of Sci Fi in the early years. I didn't see this film until I was in my 30s though.

I would never tell someone it is "fantastic" or "incredible" anymore than I would say that about L'aventura (and no I don't think the same "art" went into both) as I think it is certainly an aquired taste. But I personally LOVE survival films and this one has always intrigued me with it's mars landscape and lonely hero. It is slow and simple but has a romantic charm to it. I think that War Of The Worlds is a more accesible film to people though.

But RCOM was one of my biggest Criterion wants and am glad it is here (Two Lane is next).

[HerrSchreck]

It was quite a bit better than most B-movies I've seen.

Fact is it wasn't a B. Paramount budgeted it (I caught this off the snippets of commentary I listened to) as what they termed a "Nervous A", meaning they gave it just enough money, and all that translates as-- crew, cast, time-- for it to be considered an A-list picture... but only just enough. i e barely an A, as they were jittery about its' ability to pull in the kind of crowds to justify the expense. And quite frankly, considering the level of sophistication sf had advanced to by this time-- the science as well as the depth of the fiction-- I'm surprised they saw this as an A. There's very little above or below the veneer of its' presentation that beckons you to deeply ponder the essence of loneliness and isolation and what it does to a man. In psychological terms, I mean. Yes you see him hallucinate his friend in a moment of oxygen deprivation, you get a clear picture of the impending sense of the threat to his existence.. but these are all presented in pretty concrete, disneyesque terms.

In other words, I never felt myself becoming the lost man, never felt asked to particpate in a meditation going on beneath the surface. I saw almost no cinema, either of the high, low, or accidental/ex post facto form us sci fi fans love detecting (when so many others fail to detect it). It was a straight adventure story with some lovely visuals, with decent pefromances, somewhat accurate science, and so short on event in it's center chunk that I'm actually surprised that it actually was budgeted an A.

Some films pull back on the delivery of surface event, and actively and consciously engage another part of the mind-- I was a bit surprised to find that this didn't do this. Example-- Zavattini's dream was to make an epic film about a man to whom Nothing Happens. Presented properly, the mundane can become epic-- particularly when the subject is a soul hungry for More (as is the Crusoe character), but is unable to acquire it, and is stuck amidst meagerness. RCoM to me was absolutely nailed to it's material surface, and delivered little else. Given it's scarcity of event, and it's lack of deeper engagement, it had a scarcity of effect for me.

[Person]

I think that if we are honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that this film isn't really up to par to be in the CC, but if Paramount themselves had released it, then it would been bare bones and as the Criterion extras are so conmprehensive and enjoyable, that would have been a great loss. I just wonder if there will be a Paramount UK edition porting the Criterion extras, a la If... that would save me £6.

[exte]

It was a Criterion laserdisc, though...

[Narshty]

I think that if we are honest with ourselves...

Correction: yourself.

[Person]

I think that if we are honest with ourselves...

Correction: yourself.

Fair enough.

[Tribe]

What a pleasant surprise this has turned out to be.

I can see why Schrek calls this a "nervous A," it's never cheesy and it takes itself seriously (with the exception of Adam West who is as much of a ham here in his short appearance as he was later in the Batman series). The special effects aren't half bad...and hell, better than some crap I've seen made over the past ten years.

This is actually an intelligent sci-fi film full of humanity and, yes, feel good wholesomeness.
And isn't that music video the cutest thing you've ever seen?

I'm loving this movie to death.

Going back over Schrek's comments...yes, this movie does come off as something that the makers devoted a lot of love to. It is a heart-warming little movie that doesn't have a hint of irony or cynicism in it.

Tribe

[Blublub]

Ya, let's be honest here. It is "charming" and all that for about the first half, but after that it becomes brutally, brutally slow whilst waiting for something, anything to happen. Besides the arrival of Friday, nothing much really does. One more trip to the sausage pond would have done me in entirely.

[ianungstad]

I don't really know what people expected from this movie....

I found it to be incredibly rewarding. I loved this film from start to finish. It was a lot of fun and took it's subject matter rather seriously. I don't see how anyone could find anything boring about it.

The space ships were a bit tacky and a sign of it's time. I almost wonder if Byron added the alien invaders because he felt the movie needed more excitement.....when it didn't really. The story of survival had me totally engrossed.

The invasion scene didn't really detract me from the film either....sure you could consider this another of criterion's B movies....but I would go along with the thought of a nervous A. I've seen most of the b films in this collection....and have either hated them or liked them to moderate degrees, but like Carnival of Souls or Eyes Without a Face, I think it manages to transcend it's stereotype.

[eez28]

Beaver

[Der Müde Tod]

I enjoyed the film too, but apparently in quite a different way than all other commentators here. Sure, it is well made and well watchable as a good piece of Science fiction. I think, however, it is much more.

For me, Draper is the prototype of an unreflecting optimist which is highly desired in operations with likely fatal outcome.

As soon as he arrives on Mars, barely alive, we see him more concerned being perfectly shaved than worried about his survival chances. He is of course the leader when teaming up with the vastly more intelligent Friday (who has to learn Draper's language, and, while doing so in record time, has to endure being ordered not just to copy Draper). This naivety is hilarious. No reflection about the aliens and their potential threat to mankind, either.

Made in the middle of the Vietnam war, the message of the film becomes quite clear, and is for me an excellent example of well-made propaganda.

[skuhn8]

I had to laugh out loud during the shaving part. I took that more as an unreflective concession to post-war convention a la Leave to Beaver. I'm surprised he didn't have pressed shirt and tie in his kit.

I don't know about propaganda per se. 1964 was by no means the middle of the Vietnam War, but they might have been setting up Draper as an ideal nerves-of-steel Consultant for Prospective Hostel Environments.

[Person]

Friday is played by Sonny Bono, right?

[HerrSchreck]

He is of course the leader when teaming up with the vastly more intelligent Friday (who has to learn Draper's language, and, while doing so in record time, has to endure being ordered not just to copy Draper). This naivety is hilarious. No reflection about the aliens and their potential threat to mankind, either.

Made in the middle of the Vietnam war, the message of the film becomes quite clear, and is for me an excellent example of well-made propaganda.

As to that old fashioned British Empire "white man's burden" naivete, the key moment for me was when in a moment of frustration he calls Friday a fucking RETARD for not speaking/understanding his language.

And for the US, 1964 was the earliest beginnings of the "war" phase of our involvement in Vietnam. Kennedy was killed right at the end of 63 while on the cusp of executing his plan to begin removing the first thousand or so American advisers. Then Johnson took over and manufactured the whole Tonkin incident, sent his infamous order for actual military involvement, and things slide into major shit in the latter half of the 60's as our escalation peaked. Since the war ended mid 70's, you could say the middle was approx 1970.

As to substance, I'm just trying to unearth the reasons this film was considered so astronomically sublime by some of the most legendary cineastes... loved better than Murnau, Dreyer, Tarkovsky, Lang, Sternberg, etc. The "like" is no mystery, since it's a fun little film, but the exaltation has got me totally stumped.

[skuhn8]

I love this film... but mostly because it blew me away as a kid and I still think it holds up pretty well. But how anyone would 'exalt' RCoM is beyond me. Any specific names you could mention?

[Matango]

I bet this trailer came off the laserdisc. If I remember right, they had a second audio commentary over the trailer with RCOM #1 fan. Or maybe it was the RCOM theme song by Johnny Cymbal. Either way, hope they include all that notalgic goodness on the DVD.

The theme tune hasn't carried over from the laserdisc, and there are some photos missing, such as the cool one of Vic Lundin walking arm in arm with a group of girls. Overall this DVD package seems to lack the spark of enthusiasm that lit the fire under that great laserdisc. I was hoping for much better packaging, a better booklet and interviews with Mantee and Lundin.

Should also add that the informative Retroview segment by Robert Skotak is also absent from the DVD.