The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe [Robinson Crusoe] **** (1954, Dan O’Herlihy, Jaime Fernández) – Classic Movie Review 12,850

Luis Buñuel’s 1954 Mexican-made adventure film The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe [Robinson Crusoe] stars Dan O’Herlihy, who was Oscar nominated as Crusoe. Buñuel picked him over Orson Welles (‘too loud and too fat’).

Director Luis Buñuel’s 1954 Mexican/ American adventure film The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe [Robinson Crusoe] [Aventuras de Robinson Crusoe] stars Oscar nominated Dan O’Herlihy as Crusoe and Jaime Fernández as Friday. Buñuel’s first English-language film was shot simultaneously in English and Spanish versions.

Dan O’Herlihy earned an Oscar nomination as Best Actor for his virtual one-man show as Daniel Defoe’s shipwrecked hero Robinson Crusoe in Luis Buñuel’s gripping, intelligent Mexican-made retelling of the tale, told straight but with the odd surrealist touches. Jaime Fernández appears finally as Friday, whom Crusoe rescues from cannibals.

A notable score by Anthony Collins helps the drama, though the odd Pathécolor cinematography by Alex Phillips slightly lets down the startling visuals. But, nevertheless, this is a beautiful, underrated movie, and Buñuel’s biggest success until Belle de Jour (1967).

Title page from the first edition.

The screenplay is by Luis Buñuel and Hugo Butler, based on the 1719 English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe. Blacklisted co-screenplay writer Hugo Butler was originally credited under the pseudonym Phillip Ansell Roll.

Filming began on 7 July 1952 on the west coast of Mexico, with principal photography set for seven weeks.

Filming locations: Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico (locations) and Tepeyac Studios, Mexico (interiors).

The film premiered at the Normandie Theatre in New York City on 4 August 1954.

Release dates: 5 August 1954 (US) and 30 June 1955 (Mexico).

Production companies: Producciones Tepeyac and Oscar Dancigers Production.

The snappy original title of the novel is: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates. Written by Himself.

O’Herlihy recalled that the producers wanted Orson Welles as Crusoe but Buñuel refused, saying he was too loud and too fat. They arranged a screening of Welles’s 1948 film Macbeth to show him how a bearded Welles would look, but then Buñuel demanded O’Herlihy who played Macduff, as Crusoe.

O’Herlihy performed each scene twice, in English and then in Spanish, but a Spanish-speaking actor dubbed his voice in the Spanish-language version anyway.

Jaime Fernández was working as a grip when Buñuel discovered him and picked him as Friday. He spoke no English but learned it on the set like his character does.

It was a tricky shoot. The crew had to take daily doses of Diodoquin against dysentery and aralen against malaria. A security squad was armed with guns and machetes against snakes, wild boar and other dangerous creatures.

The cast are Daniel O’Herlihy as Robinson Crusoe / Crusoe’s father, Jaime Fernández as Friday, Felipe de Alba as Captain Oberzo, Chel López as The Bosun, José Chávez as Pirate, and Emilio Garibay as Lead Mutineer.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,850

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