Surviving Gilligan's Island: The Incredibly True Story of the Longest Three Hour Tour in History

A wonderfully conceived biopic of how Sherwood Schwartz's idea became one of the most watched comedies in TV history, even to this day.

I loved it as a kid and still often watch with my boy. Too bad Tina Louise still harbors some latent hostility for the old show, and this "True Story" as well. It would have been so great for her to be a part of it. The behind-the-scenes stuff is a riot, and the actors who play the castaways are top-notch. It's wonderful seeing Dawn Wells, Russell Johnson, and Bob Denver together, talking about the fun times, and the poignant moments about Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, and Alan Hale, all who have since passed away. I never understood why the critics were so merciless in their hatred of the show. I'd pit 'Gilligan' against the tripe on TV these days anytime!

This documentary movie hosted by Dawn Wells, Bob Denver and Russel Johnson was incredibly well done!

The actors that re-enacted the roles of the castaways were superb, the young man who portrayed Jim Backus had a hell of a task on his hands and performed pretty well.

The actor who Portrayed Alan Hale had his character down to a Science. Tina Louis was portrayed most accurately.

If you pay close attention to this movie it explains why Tina never comes to the reunions, she wanted nothing to do with this show after it was over, she demanded extra high pay to play Ginger in the Rescue from Gilligan's Island so Schwartz told her where to go and he got another actress, this is not mentioned in the film.

The fact that Tina Louis was tricked into doing this show by her agent is a good enough explaination and is fully explained here.

No one is portrayed as a saint in this film, whoever made that comment was totally wrong!

This film follows up the E! True Hollywood Story Nicely and by the way Tina Louis allowed herself to be interviewed by E! for that documentary.

I give this 4 stars for excellent acting and accuracy! Worth checking out if it is shown again.

With wit, charm and a decidedly protuding "tongue in cheek", the surviving "Gilligan's Island" cast gets together one more time, but ON THEIR TERMS...no "True Hollywood Story" paranoia here.

Using actors to portray them in their youth (as well as the deceased Backus, Hale and Schaefer), Dawn Wells, Bob Denver and Russell Johnson (along with Sherwood Schwarz, the show's creator) tell of the ups and downs of the longest tour in nautical history. The use of actors to tell the story's choppy history (it was hated by critics and CBS execs but loved by the public, much to CBS's confusion and dismay) can often be an 'iffy' proposal, but here it works wonders (the sudden jump of Wells into her "past" is especially funny and effective).

Their approach on the issue of Tina Louise (who long ago rejected the show) was honest but not as harsh as they likely could have been. Other stories, such as the demise of Jim Backus and Alan Hale and Natalie Schaefer's breast cancer, are very poignant and told with great dignity.

Special notice to Dwayne Hickman (Bob Denver's co-hort on DOBIE GILLIS) who does a nice cameo as a remarkably arrogant and dense CBS executive.

Overall, a well-developed story told beautifully, and a nostalgic trip on the SS Minnow sails smoothly. If only ALL tv shows had this chance to "finish the story"...

As a 32 year old, I grew up with watching Gilligan's Island. By watching this interesting "behind the scenes", I learned a lot. Heck, I never realized that Tina Louise was ashamed of being a part of the series. What a loser! Anyway, this was a lot of fun to watch as was anything but a "scandle" documentary. I was, at first, expecting to see some kind of E The True Hollywood Story. This was, instead, a very tastefully and well done story.

Well this was one of the stranger things I have seen, a psueo-'Behind the Show' type Bio on the Gilligan's cast, with the three surviving ones both narrating and occ. playing themselves. Intercut are re-enactments of the show, off-camera stuff and whatever, with these eerie scenes of Dawn Wells walking right into a scene and talking to 'herself'(played by someone else) in Wardrobe. Strange.

I enjoyed the tributes/portrayals of Alan Hale Jr., Backus and Schaefer the best. It was fun, esp. as the actors were all familiar TV faces. How much of this rings true, well, it's up to the viewer. No mention of Bob Denver's bust of late, or for that matter of how goofy the whole enterprise was-it's nostalgia, pure and simple.

I didn't like the one sided slant on Tina Louise, by the way, comes off as prima donna #1, all insulted by being on the show and all that. From what I can tell, it's more 'she doesn't do any reunions or anything with us so we will slag her for it', which isn't exactly fair. She was right, being on the show meant their careers were toast afterwards. Why should she wanna relive what amounted to career suicide?

Typecasting, the old demon of TV.

Overall, though, it was a good watch, not something you see everyday.

**1/2 outta **** stars.