Synopsis
Special-effects wunderkind and genre master Byron Haskin (The War of the Worlds, The Outer Limits) won a place in the hearts of fantasy-film lovers everywhere with this gorgeously designed journey into the unknown. When his spaceship crash-lands on the barren wastelands of Mars, U.S. astronaut Commander “Kit” Draper (Paul Mantee) must fight for survival, with a pet monkey seemingly his only companion. But is he alone? Shot in vast Techniscope and blazing Technicolor, Robinson Crusoe on Mars is an imaginative and beloved techni-marvel of classic science fiction.
Cast
| Commander Christopher "Kit" Draper | Paul Mantee |
| Friday | Victor Lundin |
| Colonel Dan McReady | Adam West |
| Barney, the Woolly Monkey | Mona |
Credits
| Director | Byron Haskin |
| Screenplay | Ib Melchior and John Higgins |
| Based on a story by | Daniel Defoe |
| Producer | Aubrey Schenck |
| Executive producer | Edwin F. Zabel |
| Director of photography | Winton C. Hoch |
| Art direction | Hal Pereira and Arthur Lonergan |
| Production Design | Al Nozaki |
| Assistant directors | Robert Goodstein and Arthur Jacobson |
| Makeup supervision | Wally Westmore |
| Makeup artist | Bud Bashaw Jr. |
| Technical advisor | Edward V. Ashburn |
| Editing | Terry Morse |
| Process photography | Faciot Edouart |
| Special effects by | Butler-Glouner, Inc. and Lawrence W. Butler |
| Sound recording by | Harold Lewis and John Wilkinson |
| Music | Van Cleave |
Disc Features
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- Audio commentary featuring screenwriter Ib Melchior, actors Paul Mantee and Victor Lundin, production designer Al Nozaki, Oscar-winning special effects designer and Robinson Crusoe on Mars historian Robert Skotak, and excerpts from a 1979 audio interview with director Byron Haskin
- Destination: Mars, a new video featurette by Michael Lennick detailing the science behind Robinson Crusoe on Mars
- Excerpts from Melchior’s original screenplay
- New music video for Victor Lundin’s song “Robinson Crusoe on Mars”
- Stills gallery of behind-the-scenes photos, production designs, and promotional material
- Theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by filmmaker and space historian Michael Lennick, Melchior’s “Brief Yargorian Dictionary” of original alien dialect, and a list of facts about Mars from his original screenplay
From the Current
Robinson Crusoe on Mars: Life on Mars
by Sep 18, 2007In my dreams, Mars keeps changing: gone are the verdant Barsoomian fields explored by John Carter and Princess Dejah Thoris in Edgar Rice Burroughs’s novels; the arid, canal-laced deserts that witnessed the final exodus of H. G. Wells’s desperate invaders; the mythical cities and false Ohio . . .
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