''Mr. Robinson Crusoe'' is a 1932

Pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known ...

American film. It is one of the few "

talkie A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

" films starring

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckler film, swashbuckling roles in silent films in ...

, in his penultimate film role; Fairbanks also produced the film and provided the story during the Great Depression. The film was directed by A. Edward Sutherland, a veteran

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...

director, for Fairbanks's Elton Productions, and released by

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...

. 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. The

South Seas Today the term South Seas, or South Sea, is used in several contexts. Most commonly it refers to the portion of the Pacific Ocean south of the equator. In 1513, when Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa coined the term ''Mar del Sur'', ...

comedy adventure featured location filming on

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austra ...

Vance, Jeffrey (2008). Douglas Fairbanks. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pg. 293. . with

working title A working title, which may be abbreviated and styled in trade publications after a putative title as (wt), also called a production title or a tentative title, is the temporary title of a product or project used during its development, usually ...

s being ''Tropical Knight'', ''A Modern Robinson Crusoe'' and ''Robinson Crusoe of the South Seas''.

Plot summary

The film opens with a title card that reads "From the time Adam and Eve 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 comfortable home, complete with a sign reading

52nd Street 52nd Street is a -long one-way street traveling west to east across Midtown Manhattan, New York City. A short section of it was known as the city's center of jazz performance from the 1930s to the 1950s. Jazz center Following the repeal of ...

and

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

out of the jungle. Drexel is joined by his dog, and befriended by a native monkey, parrot, and a wild goat that is captured in one of his traps. He attempts to cultivate a "head-hunter" native as his

Man Friday Friday is one of the main characters of Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel ''Robinson Crusoe'' and its sequel ''The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe''. Robinson Crusoe names the man Friday, with whom he cannot at first communicate, because they fi ...

from

Robinson Crusoe ''Robinson Crusoe'' () is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a tra ...

, but fails as the native escapes. A woman played by actress

Maria Alba María del Pilar Margarita Casajuana Martínez (28 December 1905 – 26 October 1999), known professionally as Maria Alba, was a Spanish-American film actress. Biography Signed by the Fox Film Corporation after winning Fox Film contest in Spai ...

runs away from a marriage she does not want on a neighboring island and 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 German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

, and then

Pig Latin Pig Latin is a language game or argot in which words in English are altered, usually by adding a fabricated suffix or by moving the onset or initial consonant or consonant cluster of a word to the end of the word and adding a vocalic syllable ...

. Over the course of the film, she slowly learns rudimentary English. Eventually, the 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 just as his friends arrive and he wins the bet. Coincidental to their arrival, a separate war party of natives (billed as head-hunters) arrives and attacks. Steve Drexel distracts them as his friends save his animals and head for the yacht. After a harrowing chase, he ends up escaping with his friends, animals and the girl Saturday on the yacht that brought him there. He takes her back to New York where she performs to an appreciative crowd in the

Ziegfeld Follies The ''Ziegfeld Follies'' was a series of elaborate theatrical revue productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 to 1931, with renewals in 1934 and 1936. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as ''The Ziegfeld Follies of the Ai ...

Cast

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including '' The Thi ...

as Steve Drexel *

William Farnum William Farnum (July 4, 1876 – June 5, 1953) was an American actor. He was a star of American silent film cinema and became one of the highest-paid actors during that time. Biography Farnum was born on July 4, 1876, in Boston, Massachuse ...

as William Belmont * Earle Browne as Professor Carmichale *

as Saturday

Soundtrack

During the filming the sound equipment failed and the film had to be dubbed back in California.Vance, Jeffrey (2008). Douglas Fairbanks. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pg. 295. . Alfred Newman who had previously scored Fairbanks' '' Reaching for the Moon'' composed the score. Newman reused one of his musical themes for the 1937 film '' The Hurricane'' where it became a popular song called '' Moon of Manakoora''. Newman's score for ''The Hurricane'' was nominated for an Academy Award.

Legacy

Fairbanks biographer

Jeffrey Vance Jeffrey Vance (born May 21, 1970) is an American film historian and author who has published books on movie stars including Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Career While working as an archivist for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists he met El ...

writes "''Mr. Robinson Crusoe'', his last personal production, was designed to meet his responsibilities in the least demanding way. The film was conceived as an inexpensive travelogue masquerading as a narrative film...Free from the hated dialogue that had so confined his type of film, Fairbanks should have been in his element. And yet, despite the primarily visual aspect of the film, his customary ebullience is not in evidence; his character is a hypomanic middle-aged man."

References

External links