REVIEW: DAS TODESAUGE VON CEYLON / STORM OVER CEYLON. LEX BARKER HATES THE JUNGLE (1963)

 

Storm over Ceylon/Deadly Eye of Ceylon is one of the strange hybrid movies that tries to please every producer's intention: Originally an Italian project trying to emulate the success of the CCC remake of THE INDIAN TOMB, the Germans and French quickly stepped in after Barker had become part of the Krimiverse with his appearance in IM STAHLNETZ DES DR. MABUSE. Furthermore, Barker had just become immensely popular in Germany due to his first appearance in a Karl May movie as "Old Shatterhand".  So the Germans stepped in with some serious money. The adventure element had to be pushed back in favour of a krimiplot. But visually and plotwise, this remains firmly in the adventure land of Far East mysteries. 

Due to an earthquake, the Maharadja and his testament are buried in the ruins of an underground temple. Every attempt to find the cave and the testament is sabotaged by a secret order called "The Red Eye," who sends warnings out to everybody who is working on the site.

In comes a professor from Germany with his daughter and fancy new sf-equipment to find the entrance. SF equipment gets damaged, and the daughter falls for animal trapper Barker, who just happens to be around and basically has nothing to do with the whole plot except for saving Ann Smyrner, who plays the daughter and was a staple of the German-Danish Krimiverse.

This all soon becomes a melange of stiptease sequences (one sporting a very interesting Orang-Utan-Suit), assassination attempts, secret passanges and beach love scenes straight out of AIRPLANE!. 

The whole affair is rather pedestrian as as functionally unexciting as you would expect from a Wolf C. Hartwig production. With this man I do have the slight suspicion that filming was always more of a pretext for going on vacation than anything else. Interestingly, the exploitation factor is severly low but entertainment-level (for all the wrong reasons) quite high.

Lex Barker, for all his physical attractiveness is as wooden as always and here becomes even more inanimated than usual. They could have as well just dressed up a mannequin and carried it around - no one would notice.

Surely the unexpected and early death of his wife Irene Labhardt had an enormous effect on him. And he plunged himself into the arms of starlet Ann Smyrner who would later remark that he was not up to handle her ferocity.

The movie was shot in two versions: a German one under the direction of Gerd Oswald (Screaming Mimi) and an Italian one by Giovanni Roccardi. Storm over Ceylon/Deadly Eye of Ceylon is one of the strange hybrid movies that tries to please every producer's intention: Originally an Italian project trying to emulate the success of the CCC remake of THE INDIAN TOMB, the Germans and French quickly stepped in after Barker had become part of the Krimiverse with his appearance in IM STAHLNETZ DES DR. MABUSE. Furthermore, Barker had just become immensely popular in Germany due to his first appearance in a Karl May movie as "Old Shatterhand".  So the Germans stepped in with some serious money. The adventure element had to be pushed back in favor of a krimi plot. But visually and plotwise, this remains firmly in the adventure land of Far East mysteries. 

Due to an earthquake, the Maharaja and his testament are buried in the ruins of an underground temple. Every attemt to find the cave and the testament are sabotaged by a secret order called "The Red Eye", who sends warnings out to everybody who is working on the site.

In comes a professor from Germany with his daughter and fancy new sf-equipment to find the entrance. SF-equipment gets damaged and daughter falls for animal trapper Barker who just happens to be around and basically has nothing to do with the whole plat except for saving Ann Smyrner who plays the daughter and was a staple of the German-Danish Krimiverse.

This all soon becomes a melange of striptease sequences (one sporting a very interesting orangutan suit), assassination attempts, secret passages, and beach love scenes straight out of AIRPLANE!. 

The whole affair is rather pedestrian and as functionally unexciting as you would expect from a Wolf C. Hartwig production. With this man I do have the slight suspicion that filming was always more of a pretext for going on vacation than anything else. Interestingly, the exploitation factor is severely low, but the entertainment level (for all the wrong reasons) is quite high.

Lex Barker, for all his physical attractiveness, is as wooden as always and here becomes even more inanimated than usual. They could have as well just dressed up a mannequin and carried it around - no one would notice.

Surely the unexpected and early death of his wife, Irene Labhardt had an enormous effect on him. And he plunged himself into the arms of starlet Ann Smyrner who would later remark that he was not up to handle her ferocity.

The movie was shot in two versions: a German one under the direction of Gerd Oswald (Screaming Mimi) and an Italian one by Giovanni Roccardi. There does not seem to be a print of the Italian version, so differences can (at this point) not be pointed out. There does not seem to be a print of the Italian version, but according to contemporary Italian sources, that version favors the adventure parts (secret passages, etc.) much more. 

For Wolf Hartwig, this was the start of a series of adventure-Krimis, set in the Far East. And Barker was to star in all of them, but he had become too valuable for RIALTO in their Winnetou series to let him star somewhere else, so the next installment, DER FLUCH DES MAHARADSCHA / THE CURSE OF THE MAHARAJA, would be filmed as DER SCHWARZE PANTHER VON RATANA / THE BLACK PANTHER OF RATANA later that year without him.  

For Wolf Hartwig, this was the start of a series of adventure-Krimis, set in the Far East. And Barker was to star in all of them, but he had become too valuable for RIALTO in their Winnetou series to let him star somewhere else, so the next installment, DER FLUCH DES MAHARADSCHA / THE CURSE OF THE MAHARAJA would be filmed as DER SCHWARZE PANTHER VON RATANA/THE BLACK PANTHER OF RATANA later that year without him.

If a good print appears one might be tempted to give it a try, for the locations are chosen well and the camerawork is good. The standout scene, however, must be the orangutan striptease number. Which sais it all...