Toutes voiles sur Java

While watching this adventure film produced by Republic Pictures, I expected Edward Ludwig for directing, he who already gave us the awesome WAKE OF THE RED WITCH several years earlier, one of John Wayne's favorite, and a tremendous stuff too. Edward Ludwig was the adventure films specialist, but mostly for Paramount. So, I guess that in 1953, he was also under contract with Paramount and I presume that's the reason why Joseph Kane, the Republic prolific western maker, finally made this film. And for an excellent result. One of best Jo Kane's films. Please don't miss this one. It is really a great and underrated adventure movie providing amazing action and volcano in eruption scenes.

A sort of mini-De Mille picture from Republic studios, A Fair Wind To Java is a fast-moving adventure story set in the south seas. Fred MacMurray is excellent as the hero, really quite at home in the sort of costume picture role one wouldn't expect to find him in. What absurdities there are in the story are offset to a large degree by the actor's surprising moral authority as the humane captain. Vera Ralston is lovely if unexceptional as the heroine. The supporting cast is fine and energetic. As always, the Lydecker brothers provide superb special effects on a limited budget. Overall, a watchable, old-fashioned movie, if a tad anachronistic for the fifties. The ending provides genuine spectacle, and is well worth the wait.

Fred MacMurray is the captain of a schooner sailing in Dutch East Indies waters. He's gotten wind of some fabulous diamonds, and possession of dancing girl Vera Ralston who knows where they are. Meanwhile, he has to deal with John Russell, who's the owners' representative aboard the ship, pirate Robert Douglas, and the fact that the diamonds are on a little island in the Sunda Strait called Krakatoa. And, of course, it's 1883.

It's certainly not a great movie by any means, but under the direction of reliable Joseph Kane and, for Republic Pictures, an 'A' budget, it's a swell movie for kids and men who have never quite grown up. Jack Marta handles the Technicolor cameras well, and if it seems all bright cloths and sets from Republic's disappearing serial department, it does what is expected of cheap historical fiction. Certainly the Lydecker Brothers must have had fun setting up the special effects for when Krakatoa blows up. With Victor McLaglen, Claude Jarman Jr., and Grant Withers.

Good guys vs, pirates in a race for a fortune in diamonds. Lots of action and much violence, especially in a scene where Vera Ralston, who plays an escaped slave girl, is captured by the bad guys and whipped to make her tell where the diamonds are. She dosen't tell and pays for it, leading to the explosive ending of a great erupting volcano scene.

During the late 1940s and into the 50s, Vera Ralston was the star of many Republic Studios films. She was from Czechoslovakia and her command of English, especially in the earlier films, wasn't great. So you might wonder WHY...why make her the studio's #1 star? Well, she was also the mistress of Herbert Yates...the man who ran the studio. As a result, she was cast in many films...many of which just didn't suit her talents. Here in "Fair Wind to Java" she plays an Indonesian lady...and it honestly is better suited to her language skills, though seeing her painted brown is a bit sad.

It is unusual to see the male star of the film, Fred MacMurray. He'd been with Paramount for years and was one of their bigger stars....and, at one point, the highest paid actor in Hollywood. So why would he essentially be slumming it in such a film for Republic? I have no idea...perhaps he somehow thought it would be a good idea. Perhaps someone at the studio blackmailed him into making it.

The story finds Fred playing Captain Boll...the skipper of an American sailing ship in the 19th century. Early in the story, some guy sells Boll a slave girl (Ralston) and it turns out she knows the secret to where some treasure is buried. So with her in tow, Boll and his men head back to sea. But soon pirates capture the boat and her crew and it looks as if everyone is screwed.

Unlike a typical Republic release, it's obvious that the studio spent a lot of money making this film. While they were mostly known for B-movies (mostly westerns), here they spent a large sum for the day...$1.25 million to make this movie...a LOT for 1953. Because of this, it's in color and part of it was actually filmed on the Big Island of Hawaii...though much was made closer to home in California.

Despite all this money and effort, however, the story is amazingly limp and also a bit dull. Not a terrible film by any standard, but also not a particularly good one either.