Englishman Robinson Crusoe, stranded alone on an island for years, is overjoyed to find a fellow man, a black islander whom he names Friday. But Crusoe cannot overcome the shackles of his own heritage and upbringing and is incapable of seeing Friday as anything other than a savage who needs Crusoe's brand of cultural and religious enlightenment. Friday attempts to share his own more generous and unashamed culture, but ultimately realizes that Crusoe can never see him as anything but an inferior being. With that awareness, Friday sets out to turn the tables on Crusoe.
Acting
Roundtree's simmering intelligence vs. O'Toole's brittle delusion.
Writing
Dialogue that weaponizes politeness into cruelty.
Director
Jack Gold
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during the Blaxploitation era, this reclaims a foundational colonial text by centering Black consciousness— Roundtree was fresh from Shaft (1971).
The film inverts Defoe's novel entirely: Friday's 'savage' culture— communal, joyful, sexually open— is clearly superior to Crusoe's repressed, violent Christianity.
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