Krakatoa - Das größte Abenteuer des letzten Jahrhunderts

Director Bernard L. Kowalski's resume reveals that he was more suited to television than movies, and that's apparent in the distinct lack of grandeur that accompanies this movie. It's a historical adventure film based on the real-life eruption of the volcano Krakatoa in 1883 and like later, modern-era disaster epics such as THE TOWERING INFERNO the storyline gives us a bunch of characters in a single location forced to deal with the ensuing disaster staples. Unfortunately, for those of us hoping for mucho destruction, it's not until the last half hour or so that things begin to (literally) hot up, with a plethora of miniature effects used to simulate the eruption. It doesn't disappoint but it comes far too late.

The first hour is s-l-o-w in the extreme. The supporting characters are numerous and not drawn very well, so they end up feeling like clichés: the group of inmates you just know are going to escape at some point; the square-jawed captain with the Steve Reeves beard; the drug-addicted diver and the heroic young Italian. The movie has an episodic feel to it, with one incident following another: there's the bit with the hot air balloon, the bit with the diving bell, the scene with the divers, then the volcano eruption at the end. When there's stuff going on it's enjoyable, but in-between you'll be chomping at the bit for the next occurrence.

Casting could have been better, not that the actors have much to do. Brian Keith bags the most interesting role as the laudanum-swigging diver while Maxmilian Schell plays little more than a clean-cut one-dimensional hero type. Diane Baker is shrill and irrelevant, but Barbara Werle does better, especially in an amusing impromptu song-and-dance/striptease sequence. Other actors, like father/son team Rossano Brazzi and Sal Mineo, barely register. For instance, there just isn't enough time to develop the latter's romantic sub-plot with too much time spent on Baker's uninteresting histrionics.

Resolutely old-fashioned, corny yet undeniably entertaining sea-faring adventure set in 1883. Maximilian Schell is cast as the most polite, soft-spoken ship's captain I've ever seen; he's on a mission to find a sunken ship off the coast of Singapore and raid it of its treasures. He brings several passengers aboard (a divorcée looking for her young son, father and son thrill-seekers, a deep-sea diver with bad lungs, etc.), as well as thirty shackled prisons whom he keeps down in the ship's galley. Great-looking movie originally released in the widescreen, three-camera Cinerama process, though the narrative is shaky from the beginning and the second-half is overloaded with repetitive volcanic explosions. The opening multi-screen montage of skin-divers and sunsets is beautifully presented--until you realize it's actually made up of scenes from the film which have yet to occur! The large cast is alternately wooden and unhappy, though the cinematography and special effects are good and DeVol's music score is rousing. Not a classic from the disaster movie genre, and saddled with a geographically incorrect title, but one that hopes to provide something for everyone. It's silly, but still quite a thrilling ride. *** from ****

Adventure/epic movie with a light and plain plot about a vessel weigh anchor from Singapur and with a motley and disparate crew (Diane Baker, Rossano Brazzi, Sal Mineo, Barbara Werle, among others) looking for a hidden treasure in a shipwrecked long time ago . The ship captain (Maximilian Schell) will have to confront rebels , deep-sea divers (Brian Keith), prisoner breakouts (J.D.Cannon) , mutiny , fire and facing specially the Krakatoa volcanic explosion (1883) , which proved to be the most spectacular natural disaster in history .

This jumbled picture was exhibited in big screen called Cinerama . This became one of the last features to use Todd-AO for principal photography . The film unites the Julio Verne's spirit with melodrama and the action footage is top-notch . There are varied procession of characters , typical shallow roles of catastrophic cinema that a few years later consecrates ¨ Airport ¨ (by George Seaton) , but is hampered by simple characterizations . Breathtaking , spectacular cinematography by Manuel Berenguer , outdoors have been shot in Islands Canarias (Spain) and scenarios are glimmer and glittering as when the ship cross through the cliffs while the volcano erupts . The climax is served by overwhelming special effects by Alex Weldon and the master Eugene Lorie (who had Oscar nomination) , it has main issue the volcano Krakatoa (in the map on the west , no east) and the historical eruption and continuing a demolishing seaquake , climaxed by volcanic explosion , tidal wave or tsunami . Krakatoa Island remained destroyed and died approximately 35.000 people in the catastrophe . The producers learned of the geographic error , Krakatoa was west of Java in the Sundra Strait , only after all of the advertising and publicity materials had been prepared. It was deemed too costly to re-do these materials, and possibly delay the release, for the sake of simple geographic accuracy . Frank De Vol musical score (Robert Aldrich's habitual musician) is good and evocative . Heavily cut after premiere , leaving tale more muddle than before . The motion picture was regularly directed by Bernard L.Kowalski . Rating : Passable and entertaining .

Back in the early Fifties, Republic Pictures made a feature film Fair Wind to Java that featured the Krakatoa volcanic eruption and explosion that was a B film and didn't pretend anything else. Too bad the era of B films was at an end when this one came out.

Don't get me wrong, Krakatoa, East of Java had great special effects, but it would have been nice if there had been a story worthy of those effects.

Captain Maximilian Schell is using his tramp steamer to go on a diving expedition to recover lost pearls. He has to locate the ship that they went down in so Max is prepared. He's got a father and son team of balloonists, Rossano Brazzi and Sal Mineo, a deep sea diver Brian Keith and his sweetheart Barbara Werle and Diane Baker who is the widow of the guy who lost the pearls in the first place.

And then the Dutch authorities decide he's to take on a gang of convicts for transportation. Their leader, J.D. Cannon is a former mate on Schell's ship and Schell out of friendship gives him the freedom of the deck.

I'll stop here because this thing gets dumber as it goes along. Why in heaven's name would Schell even take his ship out looking for riches with a group of convicts on is beyond me. If the authorities insisted he take them, I'd have dropped the convicts where they were to go first and then gone for the pearls. Or maybe not taken the thing out at all. And surely not have given Cannon the freedom of the deck. What a moron.

Why Brian Keith has Barbara along also doesn't make sense. Maybe he don't trust her to behave, but his reasons are obscure. And director Bernard Kowalski gives Werle a musical number. Whose decision was that to include it in the film? It's not even that good.

In a recent biography of Sal Mineo, the author recounts that when this film was having its premiere in Honolulu, Mineo walked out of the premiere, proclaiming to one and all what a piece of trash this film was. I probably think Sal knew it, but at the time he needed the dough.

Maximilian Schell is a fine actor, but action adventure hero he's not. Either he did this as an effort to expand his horizons or he too needed the dough.

Maybe one day someone will make a good film about Krakatoa, but this ain't the one. And who knows, maybe that someone will correctly place Krakatoa west of Java.

A guilty pleasure. Krakatoa, East Of Java's principal claim to fame is its title, infamously and erroneously placing its subject on the wrong side of the island. Directed by Bernard Kowalski, whose rare non-TV credits include Attack Of The Giant Leeches (1959), and SSsssnake (1973), the film is probably his best, aided immensely as it is by some excellent widescreen cinematography, emphasised with convincing location shooting -facts rarely allowed for in usual criticisms of a film which was cut by almost 30 minutes for an American re-release. The special effects, largely achieved through miniatures and blue screen work, range from passable to excellent and even now, in this era of eye watering CGI, there's still a fascination is seeing how well such a catastrophe was portrayed. The production design, by the veteran Eugène Lourié no less, is worth a discussion on its own.

In the face of this impending volcanic disaster is a nicely mixed group and one would expect plenty of steamy drama to be played out beneath sweltering decks. But the main problem the narrative is that, despite some promising elements, the audience has little empathy with the main group. Despite the long running time of the film (130 minutes in the full version), they remain too fragmented, and dramatic interest is often discharged too rapidly. But that's part of the fun, seeing how various matters are padded and dragged out between tantalising hints of the eruption to come. How some potential for real drama, like the love-hate relationship between father and son balloonists, or the latent sexuality of the Japanese women etc, is left to die by a unfocused script. For every wooden scene between between Hanson and Laura , one would dearly love more about the convict Dauzig's personal demons or his relationship with his comrades in chains below decks for instance, the resentful tension of which threatens to be every bit as violent as the island they are sailing towards.

But there's some incidental fun to be had along the way: one thinks of Keith and Werle in their cabin early on for instance, where she serenades him with a song as unexpected as it is irrelevant. It's a shipboard relationship between a heavyweight has-been and a shop worn female recalling that between Ernest Borgnine and Shelly Winters in The Poseidon Adventure of three years later. Keith's addict-diver with the 'shot lungs' provides other of the film's whacked out highlights too, as when, high on his drug, he hallucinates and attacks one of the Japanese women. Eventually confined to a crate suspended over deck until he regains his senses, Connerly is a man who seems doomed from the moment we see him. A point-of-view shot through the wooden bars during his moment of trial, lensed as he swings helplessly back and forth, suggests a prison in which a condemned man finds himself. Such is typical of a film that has many such moments, those in which characters peer at a world fraught with challenge. Whether through eyepieces, between slats, out of portholes, from balloons and diving bells, down into holds packed full of convicts or steaming volcanic cauldrons, apprehensive observation and anticipation is the norm for those who ride the Batavia Queen. These moments aptly reflect back the concerns of an audience who, in this film more than others, have come principally to observe a promised spectacular.

Such a visual motif is one of the few unifying elements in the film, other than the overarching expectation of an eruption. The overwhelming episodic nature of events is obvious, but at least it has the merit of making the film fairly diverse in content and, even in its full length version, time passes quickly enough in Krakatoa. On top of this, the concluding explosions and fireworks from the island aside, Kowalski does manage one or two effective scenes, such as the scenes in the runaway balloon, the near-comedy of which reminds one of the balloon antics in Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines (1965), or the eerie sound effects caused by the nascent eruption (although one piece of eruption footage, conspicuously recycled, is a distraction). The simulation of audio effects one of the few times that the film actually reflects the subtle indications of such a massive event realistically as, for the rest of the film, the volcano is stereotyped into the usual 'burning mountaintop' image, set in mostly clear air at that, with the phenomenon of falling blankets of ash entirely overlooked. For some reason too, Krakatoa's eruption brings on a storm at sea - a nice easy, extra, touch of drama to be sure, although quite why volcanism should affect the weather is uncertain. Tossed and buffeted, Hanson's ship is a place of refuge amongst the impending devastation and, after dropping off one or two of the travellers who decide to sit out the expected tsunami on shore - a mistake in this situation, as any alert audience immediately realises - it faces the momentous tide alone. Like a similar wave that topples the aforementioned SS Poseidon, the one that comes up here seems to break mysteriously as it approaches the ship, but the outcome is never really in doubt. On shore, the results are worse, but reasonably well done, Kowalski's images suggesting something of a biblical deluge in scenes, which even the film's doubters still find impressive.

In fact so much has been leading up to the grand finale, so many supporting stories established, that one wishes that Krakatoa would go on a little longer than it does, at least so that there was time to gauge the effect of such tumultuous effects on the key participants. Ultimately, what impresses most these days is the absence throughout of the earnestness that attends so many modern disaster movies. The result is a still enjoyable film, one both flawed and innocent at the same time.