In 1902, John, his wife Maida and their infant son David are the only survivors of a ship that crashes into the rocky beach of an uncharted island during a violent storm.

[2] Scott took out full-page newspaper ads in key cities offering a "money-back guarantee" from his own personal funds to any parent who took a child under 17 to the film and agreed with the R rating.

[4] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "What begins as a kind of tab show version of 'The Swiss Family Robinson' quickly disintegrates into a muddled meditation upon the survival of the human race, but under conditions so special that the film's primal concerns eventually become ludicrous.

"[6] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4 and called it "a pretentious potboiler" with characters that have "no identity other than sex-starved or sex-threatened.

"[9] Tom Milne of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "The performances are sound enough, but it is difficult to feel much conviction when Trish Van Devere sports the same daintily besmirched white nightie throughout the eighteen odd years covered by the action, and when the jungle boy still moves and talks like a sullen Californian beach bum.