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In reading a book about Fred MacMurray that came out last year I learned that he considered this the worst of his films. While I don't think it's as bad as all that the main weakness of Fair Wind To Java is the casting of Fred MacMurray in a part that was originally intended for John Wayne.

The same author who wrote the novel this film is based on wrote Wake Of The Red Witch which I consider one of John Wayne's best films and certainly his most romantic. After The Quiet Man came out Wayne decided to terminate his relationship with Republic Pictures and Herbert J. Yates. Republic and Yates made most of their money peddling John Wayne to the major studios with him occasionally doing a film for Republic over the years.

Try as he might MacMurray does not cut it as a swashbuckling captain of the China trade. Worse for him was the fact that his leading lady Vera Hruba Ralston was not what he was used to working with. He who made some of the best comedies around with people Irene Dunne, Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, Katharine Hepburn etc. found Ralston's lack of talent and professionalism too much.

The villain of the story is Robert Douglas an Australian merchant who also goes around as a Malay pirate with a Lone Ranger mask. This was a true comic book villain I just couldn't take seriously.

The climax is the eruption of Krakatoa where a cache of fabled diamonds are hidden in a temple. That's what MacMurray and Douglas and their respective crews are after. Now considering this is Republic Pictures and not one of the major studios the special effects aren't bad. And the color cinematography is nice.

But if you're beyond the age of 12 it's hard to take Fair Wind To Java all that seriously.

Out in the Dutch East Indies and Captain Boll is out looking for treasure, diamonds to be exact. But he is not alone, and not only does he have to contend with on board grumblings, he has angry tribesmen and a rumbling volcano thrown into the bargain as well.

Fair Wind To Java is a just above average adventure yarn, gleaming colour and a tidy production ensure it's a watchable piece. The standard plot formula {complete with pretty female love interest} is boosted by the film's last quarter, here the viewers patience is rewarded with fights aplenty and the presence of Krakatau volcano literally doing its stuff. In fact the last quarter is a joy for those with home cinema, rough seas and volcanic rumblings boom out of the speakers, and certainly up the ante of the viewing experience. Outside of that the film doesn't have much else to highlight, the acting in the main is fine, Fred MacMurray as Boll and Victor McLaglen as O'Brien both turn in solid professional performances, but Vera Ralston as Kim Kim is desperately poor in the main female role.

Not one to recommend to adventure fans with any great confidence, but certainly worth a look on a rainy day. 6/10

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.

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.

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.

Capt. Boll (Fred MacMurray) is sailing in the Dutch East Indies in search of diamonds. A slave girl Kim Kim (Vera Ralston) that he buys holds the key to the whereabouts of the diamonds and she becomes the target of pirates, led by Pulo (Robert Douglas) who are also after the same thing. The film is a race between Boll and Pulo to find the diamonds which are located on Krakatoa. As it happens, this all takes place at the same time as the volcano erupts.

Its crap. I challenge the viewer to stay with it without wandering off and daydreaming about better things. There is no interest, drama, tension - its a straightforward plodding adventure. Its slow moving and the acting is terrible. Vera Ralston puts on a terrible accent - I mean, imagine pronouncing the word "volcano" as "volcarno" - that is an accent from nowhere! Also extremely irritating is Wilson (Paul Fix) as a pirate. Why have these false, unfunny comedy characters in stories? They are not needed and they provide no humour. Boll has a troop of comedy pirates with Wilson as the worst offender. He wears a ridiculous ear-ring as well. I'd have pushed him overboard.

Robert Taylor's mask is quite effective when we first see it, and the volcano wakes you up in the last 10 minutes, but the film is just a waste of time. The sets are so obviously fake (the speed at which the water moves in the background is so laughably unnatural), the sound quality is poor and the model ships are pushed along at speeds that defy belief. At the end of the film you will be drained and just want to go to bed because you have been so bored for the last hour and a half.

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.

Republic Pictures knew how to do two things really well—action and special effects. Both are on showcase display in this south seas epic. Okay, no one expects deep think or character development from the studio of the matinée western, and this 90-minutes doesn't disappoint. For Republic, story was just an excuse to stage barroom brawls and shootouts, anyway. The plot here appears a cut-and-paste job from one of their many Saturday afternoon serials (e.g. a masked mastermind), while the characters seldom rise above stereotype.

Still, studio honcho Yates spent what for them was a bundle. He even went out and hired A- list Fred MacMurray to pair up with his hapless sweetie Vera Hruba Ralston. MacMurray, always the professional, gives his sea captain his all, while native girl Ralston has little more to do than get dragged around. I'm still puzzled, however, by handsome John Russell's presence in what seems a tacked-on role. Maybe it was something of a screen test for bigger and better things.

Anyway, the Trucolor is gorgeous, the action fast and furious if often mindless, while Krakatoa blows up real good. So, if you want your eyes entertained at the same time your brain takes a rest, be sure to tune in.

I have no idea why some of the actors who were in this film were so snide about it. As an example of a fun film for all ages with intrigue after intrigue, and the threat of Krakatoa exploding, it has all the ingredients of a first rate adventure film and it does not disappoint. It even has a queer eye, with an on-board relationship between two males that some members of the audience must have picked up on. One is half-naked all of the time, with his fully clothed friend ninety per cent in tow. Whether this was intentional I leave discerning viewers to decide. Excellent ensemble fighting and sparring on ships and a whipping scene that had made the censors reach for their scissors (if you buy the DVD from Germany you can see it uncut and much more clearly then those copies still shown on television). Vera Ralston is quite good as the 'slave' girl who gets the whipping, and she was actually very beautiful, but not successful with audiences. McMurray is good, and the climax of the film is excellent and very well done considering how hard it must have been given the techniques of the time. I give it a 9 for sheer entertainment. Basic film at its best.

In glorious trucolour! Another Republic storybook masterpiece from the last 5 years of the studio, this is an Indiana Jones pirate/volcano movie before anyone thought of Indie...or Did Spielberg Lucas see this aged 8 are regurgitate it into the 80s as with Star Wars 70s epics from other Republic (serial) adventures of the 40s. Actually, don't Spielberg Lucas owe Republic Studios a lot!!.......FAIR WIND TO JAVA stayed in cinema circulation even after 1960 and was often seen in cinema screens at Kids matinees with other Republic films like TOBOR or the hopeless western botch PAWNEE. The 1969 cinerama sized KRAKATOA EAST OF JAVA (it was west, actually) might have attempted a bigger screen and scope, but this 1953 version with Fred and the pirates - and genuinely beautiful art direction and great modelwork, is a lot more fun. Even Vera the acting wife came out of this one well.

A thrilling action adventure story is the scenario for "Fair Wind To Java." There is fighting among pirates and good guys, a graphic flogging of a beautiful slave girl and a massive eruption of a volcano, all in brilliant color. Although it's the usual good guys vs. bad guys genre, the story line is good and action abounds everywhere as the good and the bad search for a fortune in diamonds. Good performances by MacMurray, Ralston and Douglas.

Fred MacMurry earlier in his career before he became everyone's father on "My Three Sons", packs a six shooter as he commands an early 20th century clipper ship crewed by rogues who'll turn him in for gold and other riches unless they get what they want.

It's a film from a different era of commercial film making. The message of being matrimonially inclined to people outside your social niche is still there as has been the good positive message that Hollywood has typically promoted throughout the century of its existence as a film making capitol. Also is the domestication message at the end after the adventure ends.

It can be a little slow at times, and the effects of the time are what they are, miniature vessels shot in a Hollywood stage tank with a painted backdrop but with natural lighting giving it an aura of realism but obviously not being real in the lest.

The actress playing an Indian Princess forced into servitude is obviously not Indian, and the Asian adversaries appear to be a variety of actors and stuntmen from various social backgrounds, while the chief pirate is obviously a white American. Does it matter? Not really, as the thrust of the story is to domesticate and work for what you want and want to get. There are no shortcuts that lead to both happiness and success.

In fact MacMurry's character, for all his adventuring, exemplifies this, and in the end he rescues that which is most valuable to him, an it isn't the promise of the Volcano Gods.

I'm just sorry that the only version available is a respectable print on DVD, but it would be interesting to see a 2k or 4k print on bluray, though I doubt that'll be the case here.

It's not really a pirate film, but it is a sea going sailing adventure film that tells a pretty good story, and has a pretty decent message of what is important in life.

The performances are solid, some over the top moments, other moments are more plain. The action isn't wall to wall, but melds well with both plot and story. Its an older film that worth a look for a lazy weekend's viewing.

Check it out.

In The Dutch East Indies, at the end of the nineteenth century, an adventurous captain (Fred MacMurray) of an American merchant vessel is looking for a sunken Dutch vessel containing 10,000 precious diamonds. The clue is in the ring given to him and the cargo - the cargo contains Kim Kim the slave girl ( the sexy Vera Ralston). She knows where the diamond is and eventually points MacMurray in the right direction.

Unfortunately, he's not the only one after the diamonds - a pirate known as Saint Ebenezer (Robert Douglas) He commands his thug to whip Kim Kim, slams MacMurray in prison and steals some of his crew.

And hen there's also that volcano on the nearby island of Krakatau, waiting to explode in its historical, disastrous eruption..

It's a first rate old fashioned action-adventure with plenty of action, ships cannoning and clashing against each other, some good brawling (check out the one where MacMurray falls gets one of his crew for trying it on with Vera Ralston- a lengthy and well-staged fight), great villainy from Robert Douglas, Vera Ralston as a mixed-race gal, and Krakatoa going off - the volcano scene is really well done.

Fred MacMurray adds some edge as the captain with a one track mind - diamonds and Vera Ralston does well as the slave girl who fancies the captain. I think she's quite charismatic and charming. Don't quite get the bad reviews for this one as it's a fun pulpish pic with brisk pace and good action.

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.