Leofwine_draca 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.

dfarhie-1 When I was a lad, in the Cutler Ridge Cinema, after having paid 10 cents, and spent a buck at the Rexall Candy aisle.. jeez, no wonder my teeth rotted by 14! Anyway, as I was saying, Id sit in the theater among other kids my age, in plush (to me) theater seats, looking at the most marvelous blue screen.. sweeping from side to side in a grand arc, the glory of CINERAMA. The reverse embossed edge of the screen spilled the color into the front 10 rows of the seats. I saw many a good 60'z s sci fi like The Lost World, with David Hedison and Claude Rains, the original Voyage to The Bottom of the Sea movie with Walter Pidgeon as Admiral Nelson.I saw Krakatoa, East of Java in such a theater. Then it was the quintessential volcano movie with spectacular fireworks, a monstrous tidal wave that wipes out all of Sumatra.. and Java and everything else, by the looks of it. The human story is a droll treasure hunt looking for a box full of sacs of large perfect pearls, lost when a woman loses track of her husband and now cast-a-way son. Maximillian Schell plays a crusty but benevolent captain of a steel boat called the Batavia Queen. He is money-whipped into taking a group of convicts that look like they just got up out of the pit at Devils Island.Also are a father son team of balloonists (Sal Mineo's last film I believe) A deep sea explorer who has brought along an experimental diving bell, and a laudanum junkie ex diver played by Brian Keith and his floozy wife.."and smokers!". Ooops, I forgot the Japanese pearl divers (Toshi et el), although Sal Mineo says Tushy.. I swear.The cheesy soundtrack is peppered with amateurish musical numbers, a pseudo-Beachboy tenor obbligato.piece.Java Girl.Even when I saw this movie the first time, I knew the plastic volcano mountain was hokey. Krakatoa was a gentle island volcano with a low slope, not the alpine Matter-cano in the film. Also it is located WEST, not EAST of Java, but that would have made a clumsy title.. Krakatoa, West of Java.. doesn't click does it? Anyway, I bought the DVD cause I collect sorry cheesy B movies like this. That it has such screen greats as Schell, Keith, Brazzi, Mineo and Baker among others, is a definite plus. Well worth the $5.99!

barbseller05 having recently watched a science special on the eruption of krakatoa, i thought that this movie might be interesting. i may have seen it when it first came out, i'm not sure. anyway, i dvr'd it and ended up fast forwarding through a lot of it. poor story line, characters, and please, those special effects were pretty poor, when you think this is less than a decade before star wars. just obviously model ships and waves superimposed over people, structures etc. the only interesting parts happened when they focused on the science of the eruption itself--or rather the effects of that. for example, the strange sounds or the explosions in the water. in the science special there were so many eyewitnesses and true stories of survivors. marvelously told along with the true facts about this event. for example, it produced the loudest sound ever heard on earth, rendering the population temporarily deaf. so much could have been done with this movie, had they only stayed with the known facts and truth. so i have to say, if you want the excitement of one the greatest eruptions ever to happen on earth, and interesting personal stories of what happened that day, watch the science special instead. this movie was just plain bad.

FilmFlaneur 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.