Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

Though it’s rarely talked about, I’ve long considered this adaptation of the Defoe novel to be major Bunuel.

This American poster features the key artwork of the campaign: an image of Dan O’Herlihy as Crusoe holding aloft a rifle. Whoever came up with this image didn’t want to leave anything out: You know a man means business when he comes at you with his firearm, his cutlass, and his parrot.

The Danish poster replaces the cutlass with a parasol. Still got the parrot, though. The Danish movie poster tradition favors strong outlines and simplified, almost cartoon-like, coloration.

This French take adds some line-art adventure vignettes; they seem drawn from the more fully realized ones on the American poster.

Did a parrot even feature in the Defoe novel? I’ve read it, but I don’t recall a parrot.

In England, The Academy Cinema used this poster to advertise a double-bill featuring the Bunuel film. Designed by famed woodcut artist Peter Strausfeld, it features a less warlike Crusoe and a parrot that prefers fingers to shoulders.

This is the way I tend to think of Crusoe: as a resigned and rustic hermit.

I’ve never heard of the other movie on this double-bill, even though someone at the time considered it a “major masterpiece.” The tagline — “[A] moving and delightful story of two boys and an otter” — sounds vaguely salacious.