Krakatoa à l'est de Java

I have been waiting since 1969 to see this, since it wasn't available on tape, and finally saw it on DVD on widescreen TV, home theater sound, etc, to get as close to the movie theater experience as possible. Too bad, because while the spectacle of all the adventure and effects are grand, the acting, dialog and direction borders on insipid. The director, Kowalski, was interesting with his two 50's sci-fi horror flicks, he was and has been basically a TV director and it shows here. He never really uses the big screen, not to mention Cinerama, to it's potential. He doesn't use the great (like Sal Mineo) and good (like Brian Keith) actors to their full potential. The effects are nice enough, but the same shots are used too often. Where there should be build up of suspense, there's only tedium and passing the time, much like typical 70s network TV fare. The writing is uninspired and much of the dialog is weak. There's plenty of dramatic plot elements to bring together and hit us in the gut, such as the woefully unexplored relationship of Mineo and Jacquie Chan, and this would have been great with a director the caliber of David Lean or Robert Wise. The first 15 minutes are very good and made me think it would be as good as, say, The Sand Pebbles, but alas, no. In the hands of an inspired talent, I dare say it could have had several academy award nominations, including Brian Keith for supporting actor, and it could have run nearly 3 hours and still have been engrossing. Well, MGM wasn't up to snuff in 1968-69, and so this is what we got. Normally, I'd give a 6 to a film like this, but it gets 4 because of all of the wasted potential. Could be a good remake though!

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 ****

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.

Krackatoa, East of Java is a fictional story set against the backdrop of the infamous eruption of Krackatoa in 1883 that triggered huge Tsunamis. This movie involves a ship captain and his crew on a voyage to a ship wreck site close to the shores of Krackatoa where the 200 year dormant Volcano begins waking up in search of treasure. This movie does have excitement but you have to wait through awhile to get the excitement. Most of the action is on the ship. Although intrigueing things happen on the way, like dead fish in the water and unexplained explosions, the action is still too slow. However the special effects were good for a movie this old (1969). I thought the eruption and Tidal wave sequences were well done. 6/10

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.