Mr. Robinson Crusoe

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. cheerfully burlesques Daniel Defoe's old story. He does it by his familiar formula of expansio ad absurdum, inflating his original idea into incredible superlatives.

So an almost 50 years old Douglas Fairbanks ("Steve") is on his yacht sailing the South Seas with some friends and imagining how great it would be to go back to nature... He loses a bet and has to survive alone on one of the islands with only his toothbrush! Luckily for him, he is remarkably adept at adapting to his basic surroundings - we are treated to a boy scout-style lesson in how to make an axe from an old shell, a branch and loads of long grass... Soon enough, he even has the local goats and monkeys churning his butter for him! He has some altercations with other natives; meets a girl and even manages to make a radio out of shells... It looked to me as if it might have been intended as a silent film; there are fairly long periods without dialogue - and that might have made it more fun. As it is, it's just a bit too preposterous and though charming, the star isn't so shiny as he once was.

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