1932 - F.P.1 ANTWORTET NICHT, or Floating Platform 1 Doesn't Answer.

This large scale science fiction picture from German studio UFA is a fairly fascinating and still reasonably watchable story.  It seems in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean a company has built a floating platform for want of a better term a runway in the middle of the ocean for airplanes to refuel before finishing their trip across the Atlantic.  Into this comes a saboteur determined to sink F.P.1.  

The film has a rather interesting cast with Peter Lorre in an early role as some kind of reporter.  Probably the most fascinating actor is a gentleman called  Hans Albers a leading actor in German cinema in the 1930's.  Albers was married to a Jewish woman and spent his career during the Nazi years skillfully avoiding being associated with the Nazi party, no small trick in those years.

 

Obviously the film suffers from 1030's special effects but for the most part the set design is rather interesting and if F.P.1 looks like its something they built and floated in a bathtub at times well that's the way it goes for an effects heavy film shot in the early 1930's.

 

The film runs 114 minutes and was written by Walter Reisch and Curt Siodmak two gentlemen who ended up working in Hollywood after the Nazi's came to power.