| Director | Ralph C. Bluemke |
|---|
The film opens with a lifeboat washing up onto shore of a tropical island. Inside the lifeboat is eight-year-old Robby. Robby explores the island but finds no signs of any other humans. He falls into a lagoon and almost drowns, but is rescued by a naked ten-year-old black native boy, whom Robby befriends and names Friday. Robby questions Friday about his naked state and lack of shame, but it soon becomes quite clear that Friday does not understand English.
It is not long before Robby himself abandons his own clothes and the two friends scamper around the island naked and free without adult supervision. Robby teaches Friday how to speak English and fashions a pair of jean shorts for him using his t-shirt, and in turn Friday teaches Robby how to swim (this also being his very first skinny dipping and sea bathing experience). Together, the two boys survive on the island, with only each other to rely on. They build a shelter and fish for sustenance. They are faced with threats of poisonous snakes and cannibals, of which they find evidence in the form of human remains, as well as a stranger who mysteriously appears on their island one night.
The stranger, who later introduces himself as Hank, wakes the boys up in the middle of the night rambling in a drunken stupor to his imaginary friend Fitzgibbons. The boys, sleeping in the naked state to which they have become accustomed, leave their makeshift hut to investigate. Robby, thinking it might be his father coming to rescue him, puts on his now tattered cutoff jean shorts. Friday sees no need to get dressed, believing the voices to belong to cannibals from a neighboring island. The boys arrive on the beach to find Hank passed out, and they drag him back to their hut.
The next day, Hank wakes up and investigates his surroundings. He finds Robby's t-shirt and tattered shorts strewn carelessly on the beach outside the hut, and he hears children laughing in the distance. He follows the sound of the laughter to the lagoon, where he discovers Robby and Friday spearfishing in the nude. Hank introduces himself to the boys, who in turn share their fish and show him around their island. The boys remain unclothed in the presence of their guest, but they are not the least bit embarrassed or ashamed to be seen naked by an adult, and Hank does not reprimand them for it. He even joins them skinny dipping in the ocean.
Robby asks Hank if he knows his father. Hank tells him he does not, but that he is familiar with his father's work, though it is quite clear he is hiding something. Hank later reveals that he read about Robby's father in the newspaper, that he and Robby's mother died at sea, and that Robby was the only one to survive the shipwreck. Robby and Friday get dressed and Hank takes them both home in his sailboat to live with Robby's rich aunt.
Back in civilization, Robby and Friday listen to a seashell which reminds them of the ocean, conjuring fond memories of running naked on the beach, playing Cowboys and Indians, and skinny dipping in the surf.