MovieChat Forums > Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. (1966) Discussion > What was he thinking! (Spoiler Alert!)

What was he thinking! (Spoiler Alert!)


When this movie came out I was 9 years old, and even then I wondered why he left the island and Nancy Kwan! A better ending would have been if when he returned, Jane was engaged to someone else and they put Floyd into some crappy zoo. Dick breaks Floyd and his new zoo girlfriend out and they all fly back to the island. Oh well... what can I say... I'm a sucker for happy endings.

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My thoughts exactly. They could cut out the first 40 minutes of Van Dyke's painful solo comedy stylings to make room for this material. Was Disney too timid to touch "miscegenation" in 1966?!

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I really think the "miscegenation"issue was why the movie ended the way it did. Unfortunately, they didn't consider how much the audience might have come to like the beautiful Kwan. It's hard to root for an unseen, unheard rival. And in the world of romantic comedies, fiancees are fair game.

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The idea was that he was sticking to what he loved. He wrote to his fiance, and shared his inner most feelings with her, not with the beautiful island girl who was also the king's daughter. He liked Wednsday, but she was clearly flirtatious and trying to win him over. But again, he wasn't sharing his thoughts and feelings with her.

Additionally, the race aspect might not have been that big a deal with Disney, but I don't know for certain. Other other movies were showing soldiers falling for island girls or taking Japanese brides after the war. That's kind of a pro-integration theme if anything.

What Disney's feelings were on the matter I don't know, but it would seem out of character for him.

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I like your ending better. The way this movie just stopped caused me to drop my rating of it a full point. Race may have been an issue--I was too young to remember. Ten years later it wouldn't have been.

Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever.

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