Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N.

Odd, not in a good way.

In a lot of parts, 'Lt. Robin Crusoe U.S.N.' does feel like a retread of 1960's 'Swiss Family Robinson' - the plot has differences, but you could possibly make a case for it being a paint job on that aforementioned film. Too cynical? Probably.

For a comedy, there's a real lack of entertainment and humour. I don't think I laughed once. As for the cast, Dick Van Dyke is the best part of this film, though his character is rather forgettable. Nancy Kwan is decent but hardly gets to show off any of her acting abilities to be honest.

I'm not sure I entirely get the message, either. Women's rights? The ending, which kinda comes out of nowhere, goes against that. As a whole, this is too slow paced and uninteresting for me.

When I was a kid,my family went to Old Orchard beach in Maine. My mothers friend worked at the local movie house. This movie was the one playing while we were there. I must have seen it 10 times! I was about 6 or 7 as at the time as I think this was a second run type of theater. I loved this movie. But its funny, I have not seen this in years. It's on cable from time to time so I'm sure I'll run into it someday. This is one of the many films that Disney produced in the 50's,60's and 70's. There are so many to name,but here's a few: Son of Flubber, The absent minded professor, The Shaggy dog, The computer who wore Tennis shoes,etc... Just a great era for family movies. Many great memories.

Okay, I'm looking at this thing through the gauze of nostalgia. I haven't seen it all the way through since that long-ago day in 1966 when I bought a ticket at a local movie theater and watched it.

I remember that I laughed throughout this. Dick Van Dyke has always been a favorite of mine and he was in top-form for this film. Richard Deacon ("The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "Leave It to Beaver" among other things) provides narration. He had an excellent voice.

This silly, family-friendly (although a lot more friendly for the teenage boys in the audience) Disney flick is extremely entertaining. In case you're thinking of skipping it, think again. Dick Van Dyke parachutes from his Navy plane and survives on a pint-sized blow-up raft for four days, then he drifts along to an island - finally living up to his name, Robinson Crusoe. His very funny survival manual only gets him so far, but once on dry land, he doesn't seem to need it. What a handy fellow! He builds a bamboo hut, fashions clothing, constructs a sundial, sextant, and calendar system. I would have been perfectly happy if the entire movie showed all his ideas and inventions - but the boys in the audience wouldn't. . .

After a very long time, Dick finally finds footprints in the sand that aren't his own. He investigates an abandoned Japanese submarine and finds - a chimpanzee. After that, he sees more footprints and finally bumps into Nancy Kwan. She shows off far more skin than acting, which is too bad. She had a promising start with The World of Suzie Wong, but within a few years, she was only given "look but don't act" roles. But she does look very cute!

The last part of the movie gets pretty silly, when Nancy's sisters come to the island and start chasing Dick around. The boys will probably wonder why Dick would run away from all those pretty girls, but I was just marveling at how many beautiful girls with great figures came from the same family. If you think you'll like a comic stranded-on-an-island movie, you probably will. Dick Van Dyke is very cute, and he's always very funny in Disney movies.

The Aircraft Carrier in this movie is USS Kitty Hawk. I was a radioman stationed on the 'Hawk when Disney came aboard in San Diego and filmed some launches and recoveries. When we returned to San Diego the Disney crew left to go make the movie, and Kitty Hawk left for the Western Pacific and Viet Nam. When we returned eight months later, the world premiere of Lt. Robin Crusoe, USN was held right there on the ship. Disney studios came aboard and turned Hangar Bay #1 into quite a nice theater. Having been an usher in theaters in my home town of Las Vegas NV, I was assigned some ushering duty for that premiere (and I got to meet Dick van Dyke and Nancy Kwan!) Not the "greatest" movie of all time, but very entertaining.