Today’s movie is a science fiction film with a scene that
happens on July 20. I hope you will watch this movie tonight and enjoy it
ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS
Colonel Christopher Draper and
Colonel Dan MacReady are on Mars Gravity Probe One. Orbiting the red planet
they are almost hit by a meteoroid. Avoiding it takes them into the upper
atmosphere, so they eject in their escape pods, but once they’re gone the main
ship assumes a low, but stable orbit. Draper finds a cave and later some coal
like rocks that he burns for heat. He finds the other escape pod. MacReady is
dead, but their pet monkey Mona is alive. He discovers that the rocks give off
oxygen when they are burned and uses this discovery to refill his oxygen tanks.
He tracks Mona to an underground water source and edible Martian plants that
she has discovered. On July 20th, [50:09 to 55:03] Draper takes a
bath. He later dreams of the dead MacReady. Then Draper discovers a humanoid
body with a black bracelet on its wrist that was murdered and he causes the
orbiting ship to self-destruct so there is no trace of him. Alien spaceships
appear and begin blasting. He goes to the area and finds they are using
humanoids as forced labor for mining. One of the captives escapes and joins
Draper, who calls him Friday. He is wearing a black bracelet like the one
Draper found on the body. The alien ships blast the area and leave. Friday
learns English and provides Draper with pills that supply oxygen . When they
return to the abandoned mine site, all the humanoids have been killed. The
meteoroid explodes, burying them in ash, but Friday saves Draper’s life. Later
the aliens return and track Friday by his bracelet. They blast the cave and
Draper and Friday flee through underground caverns. They finally emerge near
the polar ice caps. Another meteoroid crashes into the ice cap, causing it to
start melting. Draper detects a ship, but it is from Earth.
A grade B science fiction
classic. It borrows the plot from Defoe and puts it on Mars, instead of a
deserted island. This Mars is nothing
like the real planet and the special effects are very cheesy. This movie
is corny, but it’s a guilty
pleasure.
At 50:27-28 he says it’s been
“four months and three days” since the crash. At 50:10 a shot of Draper’s
calendar shows 3/17 which is (I presume) the date he crashed.
Producer - Aubrey Schenck
Director - Byron Haskin
Screenplay - John C. Higgins and
Ib Melchior
Runtime – 1 hour 50 minutes
Released – June 17, 1964
Starring –
Paul Mantee as Christopher Draper
Victor Lundin as Friday
Adam West as Dan MacReady
Copyright by Ivan Walters 2014.
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