The Movie
Disney's live-action movies from the '60s and '70s were often pretty thin in terms of plot, whether it was the animal-based madness of Go Home, Monkeys! or fantasy stories like The Gnome-Mobile. But somehow, they were able to gain a foothold with the audience, and are well-remembered as entertaining piffle. Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. is not quite well-remembered, and if it is, it's solely because it stars Dick Van Dyke, because the plot is barely existent, no less memorable.

Van Dyke is Crusoe, a Navy pilot whose plane goes down, leaving him adrift at sea, for the first 15 minutes of the film. Describing the comedy attempted with Crusoe and his survival kit as slapstick is slightly demeaning to the genre. The jokes are familiar to anyone who's seen a lost at sea/stranded on a desert island story. Whether it was breaking new ground in '66 isn't clear, but its by-the-book today. Washing up on the beach of a tropical island, he befriends a lost chimp working for NASA and lives a "Gilligan's Island"-like life, acting as a productive blend of Gilligan and the Professor.

It's almost 47 minutes into the movie before a second human character is introduced. The beautiful island girl Wednesday (Nancy Kwan) may be worth the wait, but that's a long time to hang with a castaway, and Van Dyke is no Tom Hanks. By the time she hits the screen, she is invaluable in changing the monotony of the film. Exiled on the island because she won't marry the man chosen by her father, the chief of their tribe (Akim Tamiroff playing a chief by way of Tim Conway), she's the first South Pacific feminist, and Van Dyke, an unusually enlightened military man, supports her rights.

It's obvious to everyone by Van Dyke that Wednesday's falling hard for him, going so far as to call him "Admiral Honey." Watching this soon after watching Pocahontas, it's interesting to see what time has done to stories like this. Pocahontas is insulted to hear her people called savages, but to Wednesday, it's no big deal, as long as her man likes her. Apparently, feminism was fine as a plot point in 1966, but as motivation, it would have to wait.

Living an idyllic life on the island with a hot exotic chick would be enough for most guys, but Crusoe is in love with a girl back home, who he writes to every day, whether she gets the letters or not. That doesn't stop him from trying to help Wednesday and her friends when her father shows up. But it does affect the end of the movie, which ends in such a ridiculous and annoying way that you will curse the producers for stealing almost two hours of your life. Basically, everything that went on in the previous 110 minutes is tossed right out the window. Your DVD can follow soon after.

The DVD
Packaged in Disney's signature white keepcase, the one-disc DVD package includes a two-sided insert with a chapter-stop list. The menus are presented in static anamorphic widescreen, with pictures from the film. Options on the main menu include play, scene selections and set-up. The scene selection menus have still previews and titles for each scene, while set-up options are actually just an option: English captions.

The Quality
Before getting into the quality, there's one factor more important than anything. The film is presented in full-frame, probably the result of opening the mattes on the original aspect ration. Why they would do the menus in anamorphic widescreen, and then cheap out on the film itself, reeks of laziness on Buena Vista's part.

Beyond the aspect ratio, the film looks quite good. The level of fine detail is surprisingly high, and the colors are bright and full. Skintones especially are excellent. Though the film grain is somewhat visible, it's not oppressive, and dirt and damage are at a minimum, and hardly obvious. At times, it probably looks too good, as the mechanisms behind visual effects are visible.

The audio is done as a Dolby Mono track, without much to speak of. There's no trouble understanding the dialogue, and the music soundtrack is strong. Considering the age and source material, its a fine job.

The Extras
What is this "extras" you speak of, white man?

The Bottom Line
If you enjoy fish-out-of-water comedy with a comic expiration date that passed in the late '60s, or movies with chimps, you'll get a kick out of this movie. Otherwise, it is the longest 114 minutes you'll experience. The story is so uneven, dated and insulting to your intelligence that you'll long for the freshness of a Pauly Shore flick. Worse yet, the DVD presentation is bland, without even the original aspect ratio. Unless you have a nostalgic connection to the movie or Van Dyke, you're best off skipping this bare-bones release.

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*The Reviewer's Bias section is an attempt to help readers use the review to its best effect. By knowing where the reviewer's biases lie on the film's subject matter, one can read the review with the right mindset.