OLD SHATTERHAND (1964)

In the American Old West, a frontier couple is killed by bow and arrow and two Comanche Indians are left dead at the scene, making it look like Apaches were responsible. But the attackers are white men on a mission: to undercut the ranchers' trust in the Apaches and to stop a treaty with the Apaches from being signed in Washington. They don't realize yet that the couple's young son escaped and can serve as a witness against them. The bad guys are led by Bradley and Dixon; the good guys are a German man named Old Shatterhand (though he's not that old), his Apache blood brother Winnetou, Winnetou's adopted son Tujunga, and an actual old guy named Sam Hawkens. There are casualties (surprisingly, the boy is killed during a shooting match by one of the villains) and the two hour running time is too much, but there is an effective climax at a fort, and the promise of more adventures with Old Shatterhand and Winnetou. The two main characters are creations of the German author Karl May (1842-1912), with Winnetou actually being the primary character in his books. The stories were very popular in Europe but weren't translated into English until the 1970s. Based on the evidence of this movie, these are fairly traditional western stories of ranchers and land grabbers, with an emphasis on friendly relations between the white men and the Indian tribes. Over a dozen movies based on May characters were made in Germany in the 1960s and were very popular. The American actor Lex Barker played Old Shatterhand in seven movies (this was the third one released), and another popular May creation, Kara Ben Nemsi, in other films. Some viewers call this a Eurowestern, akin to a spaghetti Western but filmed in Germany rather than Italy, though in style, it's much closer to the traditional Hollywood Western epics of the late 50s and 60s—and the theme song practically plagiarizes the theme of The Magnificent Seven. Barker is fine, but he's certainly no Clint Eastwood, though he is a bit of a loner. French actor Pierre Brice played Winnetou and he's acceptably stoic and respectable. Israeli actress Daliah Lavi is Paloma (aka White Dove), a part-white part-Apache woman who lives near some impressive waterfalls; she's nice eye candy but doesn't play a large role in the plot, and no real romantic tension is generated between her and Barker. Two handsome actors, Guy Madison and Rik Battaglia, are the chief bad guys. Old Sam Hawkens is played by Ralf Wolter whom I know as the porn writer in the movie Cabaret. The Yugoslavia backgrounds fill in nicely for Arizona or California. I bought a Blu-ray set of seven Karl May movies so I'll probably write a few more up in the future. Western fans should like this, but don't expect anything very different or exotic. [Blu-ray]