10 Ways to Leave Your Island (With Harrison Ford)

Sure, we all heard the pre-release ballyhoo about the new Harrison Ford-Anne Heche picture, “Six Days, Seven Nights.” All the talk revolved around the romantic pairing of the man’s man and the woman’s woman in this comedy-adventure about an unlikely pair stranded on a a tropical island.

But what’s so surprising about that? Ford and Heche are both gifted, appealing actors, and besides, where were these self-ordained chemistry police the last time Ford was paired with a beautiful blond (Brad Pitt in “The Devil’s Own”)? Somehow lost in all this homo-hetero hoopla was the much more pressing question: Can they simply get off the island at all?

Obviously, the ’60 sitcom--and cult fave--”Gilligan’s Island” was an influence on “Six Days, Seven Nights.” But the creators of “Six Days” evidently felt that a pop-culturally schooled character like Heche’s New York fashion magazine editor wouldn’t deign to make such an obvious reference when stranded on a deserted isle herself.

Since the formulaic film has received only a lukewarm reception, perhaps the producers would have done better to enlist a technical advisor to help the couple escape the island faster than the allotted six days.

So what would Gilligan do in a situation like this (assuming he wasn’t the real-life Gilligan, Bob Denver, who’s busy dealing with some legal problems in West Virginia where he got busted for alleged pot possession). After years of fruitless attempts at egress, the Skipper’s Little Buddy now stands tall in our collective consciousness like some slapstick Sisyphus whose struggles have lent him stature.

Surely he could channel the Professor and offer sage counsel to Ford and Heche who concentrate so mightily on squeezing out sparks from their nascent relationship that they repeatedly drop the ball when it comes to engineering a way out.

So in the spirit of Gilligan we offer 10 Ways to Avoid Six Days and Seven Nights of an Unwanted Island Stay:

1. Transform a grove of palm trees into two sets of goal posts and wait. The NFL will probably send out a team of cartographers and cheerleaders and proclaim your island its newest expansion site. Teams of concessionaires, parking lot tycoons and souvenir peddlers will magically emerge from the woodwork of the seemingly desolate island. (If not, worst-case scenario is that Raiders owner Al Davis will threaten to move his team there.)

2. Hang out by the natural spring. Wherever there’s a remote water supply, some producer in Los Angeles will undoubtedly demand that it be bottled and brought to his or her table at 7 bucks a glass. They’ll find a way to get that liquid status symbol off the island come hell or sparkling water and you can hitch a ride with it when they do.

3. Call Ginger Spice for advice. She got off a sinking ship pretty well, didn’t she?

4. Borrow the Clinique company catamaran. Clearly, Heche grasped what Tina Louise knew all along: When it comes to survival in the treacherous unknown, a girl simply can’t face wild boars and extreme close-ups without a steady stream of eyeliner.

5. Send a message in a bottle. Claim to be holding Leonardo DiCaprio hostage, and wait for a human bridge to materialize within minutes, constructed mainly of crazed teenage girls and even more crazed agents trying to sign him for his next movie. (Note: If you actually happen to have Leo on the big rock with you, simply point him toward the heavens. His “heat” factor right now is about a billion times stronger than an industrial flare.)

6. Check for signs of unintelligible Method acting. Your tropical prison may in fact be Marlon Brando’s island. (If your sun dial tells you it’s sweeps week and you happen to see Larry King sniffing around the beach with a box of chocolates and a camera crew, you know you’re on the right track. Paging Dr. Moreau, paging Dr. Moreau.)

7. If you’re on a volcanic island, use that fertile soil wisely. Stash some of it away in a hollowed-out coconut. Use it to grow a pasture full of “medical” marijuana. Then, just wait for the authorities to whisk you off to prison. (Good for tropical islands under California jurisdiction only.)

8. Find a Starbucks on the island and order up a custom-designed Venti-Hydroplane-Accino, with an extra double shot of espresso. There’s enough caffeine in it to shoot you straight to Catalina. And if you’re wondering how they got a Starbucks on a deserted island, get over it: There’s already a Starbucks on the asteroid that’s going to hit the Earth in “Armageddon.”

9. Put up a sign saying “Montana, the Island.” The influx of ranch-happy Californians will quickly have you wishing you were once again off the map.

10. Bring Quentin Tarantino along to direct the film version of your island adventure. Why? He can return anyone from obscurity. (For references, feel free to call John Travolta, Pam Grier, Robert Foster, et al.) While you’re at it, rather than the current awkwardly named film, you could name yours something catchy. Does “Lagoon Dogs” float your boat?