Robinson Crusoe on Mars is a little-noted 1964 movie about a stranded astronaut surviving in the deserts of Mars. Commander Kit Draper (Paul Mantee) finds himself alone after he has to bail out of his spacecraft which dodged a meteor in near-Mars orbit. His companion, Colonel Dan McReady, played by a pre-Batman Adam West, is killed when his rescue craft craches. Draper does locate Mona, their monkey, and proceeds with the incredible problems he must face...lack of water, food, oxygen, and a loneliness that makes him mix dreams with hallucinations. The second half presents a different set of problems and the rescue of an alien slave who Draper dubs Friday (Victor Lundin). Friday is among a crew working on mines nearby, hunted by his masters after he makes a run for it, using spacecraft recycled from George Pal's War of the Worlds and themselves dressed in spacesuits left over from Pal's Destination Moon.
Good story, the second act slows on occasion, but overall it's a terrific story filmed with a red filter in Death Valley, with occasional spurts of fire dispensed with after the opening sequences on Mars.
Worth watching for any science fiction fan.
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