Help me identify a "Robinson Crusoe" type film?

I watched "Father Goose" with Cary Grant again last night and was reminded of another movie with similar, though not comedic, theme. Guy is stuck on an island (might be wartime) with a wreck of a boat and must use what is at hand to survive. More like "Cast Away" but probably made in the sixties or seventies.

I recall he has to make all sorts of survival gear out of what is at hand on the small boat he arrived on. It was fascinating as a kid to watch since it was like Macgyver gets shipwrecked.

Ring any bells?

Thank you very much for those. I'm looking into them. Both look very promising. Pretty certain that the film I have in mind was wartime. 'Heaven Knows' looks suspiciously like 'Mother Goose'. I wonder which came first? 'Hell in the Pacific' looks like it ought to be a great movie even if it's not what I'm after. If in either one, Robt Mitchum or Lee Marvin reveal a real diy/macgyver bent while repurposing machinery off of a boat to set up their digs on the island, you will have helped me solve the mystery movie.

I'll get back here if, after watching, they aren't exactly what I'm after.

Working my way through the 'survival' genre and its sub genres. War survival, prison/camp survival, tropical island, arctic, deep woods, under ground, trapped in the city, desert/outback, outer space, etc. Horror survival just leaves me bored, don't know why. I experience movies like "Saw" as a form of bad comedy more than anything else, no matter how brilliantly written/acted/directed. At the other extreme, I feel exactly the same way about organized religion, so that may explain quite a bit.

One of my favorite survival films is "Walkabout". Two children endure the Aus outback after being abandoned by their father. Little of the grueling, nail biting, drama usually associated with survival tales, but a beautifully conceived story. An amazing little movie.

It's usually what is developing inside of the character's heads, more than most of the action taking place around them, that attracts me to this type of film.

I came across a Polish production called "In Desert and Wilderness" that had been described similarly. Two children of an aristocratic family are kidnapped in Africa, escape their captors, and must survive the wild elements. But it's based on a children's book originally and it shows, unfortunately (unless you're 12 and under). It's much more "disneyish" with exaggerated stereotypes of character all the way through and mostly predictable hijinks and made-for-tv plot progression along the way.

Those were two enjoyable movies, especially "Hell in the Pacific". How the hell had I never seen that one before? "Heaven Knows" had its fine moments as well, but as soon as I saw the John Ford imprimature in the opening credits I was prepared for the nearly comical stereotypes to follow. And it delivered. Just don't think his films have aged gracefully as great as they once were.

But neither film was my goal. I'll have to look into the Dick Van Dyke film next. I was pretty young when I saw the film I'm describing, but I don't recall that it was a comedy. But I was young, so who knows? Did Van Dyke do much macgyverin' in it?

Any other suggestions here? I've scanned a couple of dozen "best of" lists including most of the search terms I suggested above for the genre. There's quite a bit of the nuts'n'bolts tinkering going on in the film as the main character variously uses parts of the boat to make improvements to his living space and then finally (if i recall) to get the boat to actually work. In that sense it's quite a bit like Flight of the Phoenix, one of my all time favorite macgyver/survivor tales. Remember when it's discovered that the German aircraft engineer is, after all, only a model aircraft designer? Hah!

And loosely related to the theme, here's a Forklift Survival video in case there's still someone out there who hasn't seen it yet.

oops, right that. I did mean Huston. And pretty far off in my criticism. I'll lighten up on the analysis since I'm only mostly embarassing myself.

I read about the Dick Van Dyke movie and am sure that It's not likely to be the one. I wish I could find a more complete list of "stranded/deserted island/island survival" movies. Most lists stop at ten. Some go further, but very few include even the likes of "Hell in the Pacific" or "Heaven Knows..." so I'm guessing that a much more inclusive listing must exist somewhere.

I hate it when you can only grasp at threads of recollection, but recall enjoying something enough to keep looking.