I was one who loved The Phantom when it came out, @Hedgehog. I grew up avidly reading the comic strip, both in its daily and Sunday iterations, and like you I thought the movie captured the spirit of the comic in a fun way.
Oooooooookay. I beg your patience with this next bit. The next DVDs I recently acquired are a box set of seven films. But before discussing the films I need to give the background--and I would rather do it just once here instead of mentioning it with every review of the seven movies.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, there was a hugely popular German writer of adventure stories: Karl May. He wrote a lot of other stuff, too, but let's focus on his adventure stories. His fame reached others countries, but he never quite clicked with the English speaking audience. But in Germany, Karl May is legendary--a national institution. (His actual life is interesting, what with prison and shamelessly lying self-promotion---but let's leave that for another day.)
His most popular and famous stories are Westerns--yeah, set in the American West that he had never set foot in when he wrote the stories. These feature German adventurer Old Shatterhand and his blood-brother and Apache chief Winnetou. But he also wrote a series of stories (called the "Orient Cycle") featuring Kara Ben Nemsi, a German adventurer in North Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans during the late Ottoman Empire. And then there are the lesser tales, not as popular, featuring German doctor/adventurer Dr. Karl Sternau, usually in Mexico and Central America.
In the 1960s, German studio Rialto Films got the rights to May's Western novels and put out films with Old Shatterhand and Winnetou (and make no mistake--Winnetou is no Tonto; he is arguably the central character supported by his blood brother Shatterhand). These films were very successful.
But another German studio, CCC Films decided to get in on the act. They did not have the rights to the actual May stories, but they decided to use the characters---and, in a jaw-dropping development, used the SAME ACTORS as Rialto used, with Lex Barker being Old Shatterhand and Pierre Brice as Winnetou. And they put out two Westerns. And CCC did have the rights to do other Karl May films, and also put out films for those other intellectual properties.
And that brings me to this box set put out by Eureka! under its Masters of Cinema label. It is called "Adventure Calls: Karl May at CCC" and it features two movies with Old Shatterhand (Lex Barker) and Winnetou (Pierre Brice); three movies with Kara Ben Nemsi (also Lex Barker); and two movies with Dr. Karl Sternau (you guessed it--also Lex Barker). That American Lex Barker was apparently considered the archetype of Karl May's German heroes is probably worthy of study--but by somebody other than me!
So, with that background, I will be giving reviews of the seven films in this set. First up will be Old Shatterhand (1964). Stay tuned!
Old Shatterhand (1964). A German Western, which is not a phrase I even knew existed a year ago. The plot: a renegade soldier wants to stir up trouble between white settlers and the Apaches (Winnetou's tribe). Winnetou is trying to negotiate a peace treaty between his people and the "great white father in Washington." The bad guy wants this to fail and so he starts framing the Apaches for various atrocities. He uses drunk Comanches to frame the Apaches. As one does. Noble Winnetou and his blood brother Old Shatterhand strive to clear the Apaches' name and secure the peace--not just the peace between white settlers and Apaches, but between Comanches and Apaches.
It is not totally clear what the bad guy hopes to get out of this, but there is some loose talk about land deals...suggesting that he expects to take over the Apache lands once the military kills them. But motive is clearly a MacGuffin for the action.
The plot has a number of nice twists, as the good guys get evidence to clear the Apaches, and then the bad guys take that evidence away. And the good guys get more evidence. And lose it to the bad guys. and so on until the climactic battle scene.
This movie looks very good. CCC put a ton of money into it, which is not at all CCC's standard operating procedure. But this movie was special and became the most expensive German film of the 1960s. And it looks it on the screen. Wide screen with great sets, beautiful vistas (in Croatia, I think--but don't quote me). The battle scenes employ a large enough group of extras to be convincing. It is a German Western that easily stands up to Hollywood Westerns of the same period.
It is a good Western. If you like Westerns, you will likely enjoy this film.
Old Shatterhand (1964). A German Western, which is not a phrase I even knew existed a year ago. The plot: a renegade soldier wants to stir up trouble between white settlers and the Apaches (Winnetou's tribe). Winnetou is trying to negotiate a peace treaty between his people and the "great white father in Washington." The bad guy wants this to fail and so he starts framing the Apaches for various atrocities. He uses drunk Comanches to frame the Apaches. As one does. Noble Winnetou and his blood brother Old Shatterhand strive to clear the Apaches' name and secure the peace--not just the peace between white settlers and Apaches, but between Comanches and Apaches.
It is not totally clear what the bad guy hopes to get out of this, but there is some loose talk about land deals...suggesting that he expects to take over the Apache lands once the military kills them. But motive is clearly a MacGuffin for the action.
The plot has a number of nice twists, as the good guys get evidence to clear the Apaches, and then the bad guys take that evidence away. And the good guys get more evidence. And lose it to the bad guys. and so on until the climactic battle scene.
This movie looks very good. CCC put a ton of money into it, which is not at all CCC's standard operating procedure. But this movie was special and became the most expensive German film of the 1960s. And it looks it on the screen. Wide screen with great sets, beautiful vistas (in Croatia, I think--but don't quote me). The battle scenes employ a large enough group of extras to be convincing. It is a German Western that easily stands up to Hollywood Westerns of the same period.
It is a good Western. If you like Westerns, you will likely enjoy this film.
I'm not into Westerns (I'm sure I could find one I'd like), but I am curious as to whether they are in German with subtitles.
I'm not into Westerns (I'm sure I could find one I'd like), but I am curious as to whether they are in German with subtitles.
That's not quite as straightforward a question as it sounds.
The movie is in German with English subtitles. But there is also the option to listen to an English language dubbed version. But here is the twist--there is no way to see a version of the movie that is NOT dubbed. Even the German version is dubbed. The cast was multinational: German, French, American, Israeli....So, for example, Lex Barker, when filming, was speaking in English and then his voice was dubbed into German for the German language version. But others in the cast were speaking German or other languages.
So any version of the movie where the audio is in a single language is a dubbed version.
Personally, I chose to listen to the German version and read the subtitles, in part because I am trying to learn German. And hearing German spoken with a slow Western drawl is an experience!
I'm not into Westerns (I'm sure I could find one I'd like), but I am curious as to whether they are in German with subtitles.
That's not quite as straightforward a question as it sounds.
The movie is in German with English subtitles. But there is also the option to listen to an English language dubbed version. But here is the twist--there is no way to see a version of the movie that is NOT dubbed. Even the German version is dubbed. The cast was multinational: German, French, American, Israeli....So, for example, Lex Barker, when filming, was speaking in English and then his voice was dubbed into German for the German language version. But others in the cast were speaking German or other languages.
So any version of the movie where the audio is in a single language is a dubbed version.
Personally, I chose to listen to the German version and read the subtitles, in part because I am trying to learn German. And hearing German spoken with a slow Western drawl is an experience!
OMG it would be cool if someone put out a DVD where you could choose the originally recorded audio for everybody, with English subtitles. So some people would be in French, German, etc. But they’d all understand each other… you could show it at Pentecost! 😃
I’m reminded of a production of Die Fledermaus broadcast on PBS on New Years’ Eve decades ago. Every character sang in their native language rather than in German. (The chorus sang in German.)
The exception was Kiri Te Kanawa as Rosalinda. She sang her solos in English, as I recall, but she sang duets in whatever language her partner was singing in.
I’m reminded of a production of Die Fledermaus broadcast on PBS on New Years’ Eve decades ago. Every character sang in their native language rather than in German. (The chorus sang in German.)
The exception was Kiri Te Kanawa as Rosalinda. She sang her solos in English, as I recall, but she sang duets in whatever language her partner was singing in.
[Emily Litella]
Poor bats! Whyever would someone want to say “Die, fledermaus! Die!” They should live! A good long proper bat’s life! And eat toast! And fly free with all their cute little bat friends! Did you know they eat bugs? Imagine what it would be like without them! What a sad, sad—
I have finished with the next film in the CCC box set. It has the unwieldy title of Winnetou and Shatterhand in the Valley of Death (1968). The story is a fairly standard Western plot about hidden gold and our heroes, Winnetou & Shatterhand, making sure that the gold ends up with the proper owner. CCC is back in its more traditional penny-pinching form. There is a fight scene where the doors are clearly thin balsa wood, shattering with ludicrous ease when the stunt man dives into them. There is little or no attempt to hide it.
But here is an interesting trivia point. The prior movie, Old Shatterhand, came out in April of 1964. This movie came out in December of 1968. What happened?
This bring us back to my earlier post. Remember I mentioned that CCC did not have the rights to Karl May's actual Western novels? Those rights were held by Rialto. But CCC could use the characters of Winnetou & Shatterhand and then, cheekily, cast the same actors as Rialto was using. Of course, there was litigation! The settlement was that Old Shatterhand could be released but CCC had to agree not to use the characters again until Rialto was done with them. The last Rialto film was released in December of 1966. By then, the studio felt the public interest in the series had faded. And they were right. CCC's 1968 film did not do very well on release and the series ended.
Next up in the box set are films based on Karl May's "Orient" stories. CCC did have the rights to May's stories for these movies, and the three films came out in 1964 & 1965. I have no idea what they will be like, but I see the first is directed by Robert Siodmak.
In need of a good laugh, we went to see Minions and Monsters last weekend.
Is it great art? No.
Did we laugh like drains? Yes... yes we did.
It's a tribute to the silent film era. The minions end up being Keystone Cops-style film stars, and of course the arrival of sound makes things difficult for them. (No, we're not talking ISngin' in the Rain here although it was in my head the whole time!)
So many classic silent film gags - Buster Keaton with the house frame falling round him, for instance. The plot is pretty much irrelevant but ends satisfactorily.
Their nonsense language is always good for a giggle too - lots of French, Spanish, Italian and even Japanese (they referred to a train as 'shinkansen' which made me laugh).
Back to my box set of Karl May Adventures! The next film is the first in the so-called "Orient" cycle.
The Shoot (1964). Direct by Robert Siodmak. The title is a little odd. "The Shoot" is a person, the mysterious leader of a bandit gang terrorizing the Kosovo/Montenegro region. The German title is "Der Schut"---but "Schut" is apparently not a German word. In the movie, a character references a Turkish dictionary to decide that "Schut" means "yellow"--so the villain is supposed to have a yellow complexion. In the original novel this probably worked, but in the movie the villain does not have such a complexion, so the name remains...curious.
The hero is German adventurer Kara Ben Nemsi (which translates as "Karl from Germany"). I laughed earlier that Lex Barker was cast as the hero in all these movies...but I have to withdraw the joke, at least partially. Early in the movie, Kara Ben Nemsi is being described with the words that "the Indians have christened him Old Shatterhand for with his fist he is capable of overpowering the strongest of opponents." In other words, Old Shatterhand (see prior movie) IS Kara Ben Nemsi. He just changed continents. So of course he is played by the same actor!
The movie is quite good. Kara Ben Nemsi is helped by his Muslim sidekick (and comic relief) Hadschi. They are on the trail of "the Shoot" who has kidnaped their friend. There is also a comic English character, Sir David, and his manservant Archie, which very much follows the Bertie Wooster/Jeeves relationship. In a lovely scene, Kara Ben Nemsi's sidekick tries to impress them by saying they can trust him because of the length of his name: Hadschi Halef Omar Ben Hadschi Abul Abbas Ibn Hadschi Dawud al Gossarah. Archie responds that his name is Archibald Douglas Jonathan Timothy George Kenneth Clarence Croutwell of Gallwey Fillmore Percival Dyron Winston Oliver Howard Christopher Marmaduke McFlipp...and, no, he doesn't trust him!
They spent money on this movie. Beautiful scenery, beautiful sets and costumes. The comic relief is often actually funny (an unusual circumstance in my experience). And, in the final confrontation, the female lead saves our hero (Kara Ben Nemsi)--while being whipped, proving that she is more than just eye-candy. And, trying not to give too many spoilers, but in a film with a lot of comic relief and adventure, right at the end there is a completely unexpected death that is quite moving.
So, overall, I give "The Shoot (Der Schut)" a high recommendation. The adventures of Kara Ben Nemsi will continue in the next film...
Onward to the second CCC film featuring Kara Ben Nemsi: "Through Wild Kurdistan" (1965). At the end of "The Shoot," Kara Ben Nemsi was going to go back home to Germany. This film starts up where the prior leaves off. Before he goes back to Germany, he pays a courtesy visit to the Padischah, who I gather is like Ottoman sultan. He gives a big party to thank Kara for ridding the land of The Shoot (still a silly nickname). He gives Kara a special passport to protect him as he travels through the land.
Meanwhile, in one of the regions of Kurdistan, the local governor (appointed and trusted by the Padischah) is Machredsch of Mosul. He and his Turkish guards stop at a well. But the well belongs to an Arab tribe (Kurds, perhaps...it is Kurdistan, after all), the Haddedin. Ahmed el Corda, son of the Haddedin sheik Mohammed stops Machredsch and tells him that nobody (not even the Padischah himself) can take water from the well without the sheik's permission. "The law of the desert," apparently. A fight breaks out and Machredsch captured Ahmed, accuses him of killing four men, and plans to have him executed in a few days time. Maybe he did kill them; the fight scene was a little chaotic and I only saw one person whom he might have killed. But clearly we are meant to view Machredsch as the villain of the piece, exceeding his lawful authority.
It turns out that the Haddedin tribe is the tribe of Kara's friend Hadschi, and the sheik asks for help. And our hero agrees, hoping to stop any hostilities between his friends the Haddedins and his friend the Padischah.
The plot gets more convoluted after that, as loyalties of secondary characters switch regularly depending on who is bribing them at the moment. And some heavy-handed comic relief from Sir David and Archie gets slipped in. Somehow Chaldeans get involved, too, although I think I missed the explanation for that. But, as we all expected, it all ends with a confrontation between Kara Ben Nemsi and Machredsch of Mosul.
Not a great movie by any means, but I gather it gets shown during the Christmas holidays, and it is good, simple entertainment for that period.
That leaves us with one last film featuring Kara Ben Nemsi. I have not watched it yet, but I can tell you that there is an interesting behind-the-scenes story to go with it! Stay tuned!
We are up to the third (and last) film about Kara Ben Nemsi from the CCC collection of Karl May Adventures: In the Kingdom of the Silver Lion (1965). This one follows on directly from the previous film Through Wild Kurdistan. In fact, the main cast is pretty much the same. In addition to Kara, Hadschi, Sir David and Archie, we had the Haddedin, Ahmed el Corda, the Padischah and, as villain, Machredsch of Mosul. The basic plot is Machredsch trying to get revenge on Kara Ben Nemsi for what happened in the prior film. There is also a secondary plot about grabbing the "treasure of the Chaldeans"---which at least helps explains why the Chaldeans were slipped into the end of the prior movie!
The thing is, this sequel was filmed at the same time as the prior movie was. If you know you are going to make a sequel, that makes financial sense: you only have to set up the scenery once but get two films out of it. Quite the cost savings! None of that is surprising.
But another attempt at saving money was: the actors were not told that they were making two movies! They all thought the scenes they were filming were part of one movie. They did not know about the second movie until it hit the theaters! And, yes, there was litigation. Main star Lex Barker sued on the grounds that he had only been hired for one movie. He won, and he got paid. I have no idea what happened with the other actors.
The CCC box set concludes with two movies based on Karl May's Mexican/Aztec stories. I have learned that (much like the last two movies) the two Aztec films are really part 1 & 2 of the same story. As such, I will not review them until after I have watched both.
Finally! The last two films from the Eureka! box set of CCC movies of Karl May Adventures.
"The Treasure of the Aztecs" and "The Pyramid of the Sun God." Released a month apart in 1965 (made after "The Shoot" but before "Through Wild Kurdistan").
These two movies were always marketed as being Part 1 and Part 2 (which is good because otherwise the end of Part 1 seems blah). Lex Barker is back, now playing Dr. Karl Sternau, physician, surgeon and spy. He is in Mexico to support Benito Juarez as Mexico struggles to throw off the French rule and Emperor Maximilian. BUT before we do all that, we meet a grandfather and his granddaughter, the last two direct descendants of Montezuma. They alone have the secret to the Aztec gold. Why do they hoard it instead of use some to live a good life? Actually, the granddaughter Karja basically asks that question, albeit in the less selfish mode of "Why don't we just use this money to support Juarez's fight for all of Mexico?" Her grandfather tells her the gold must only be used once an heir to Montezuma rules Mexico.
Yeah, whatever. Basically, the Aztec gold plot gets put on the back-burner (until the second film) as we develop several conflicting characters. There is renegade Captain Verdoja, who Juarez throws out of the ranks for misconduct. There is the disreputable gambler Count Alfonso (son of a friend of Dr. Sternau, but who is cut off from the will because of his misconduct)(the friend also supports Juarez, so Alfonso has a grudge there too). There is the female villain, Josefa, who flirts with pretty much all of the above and more. But it is clear all she wants is gold. Oh, and there is a tribe of Indians who also apparently want the Aztec gold. Naturally, all these villains work at cross-purposes and all of them dislike the honorable Dr. Sternau.
Like "The Shoot" these two movies were directed by Robert Siodmak. He does not do as good a job as he did on "The Shoot"--but he probably did it better than any other director trying to work the same overcomplicated plot.
I would rate not particularly good, but not horrible. The end is a little messy, but again that was because there were too many stray plot lines to be tied up. I mentioned the blah ending to Part 1---it is made even more blah in Part 2 as the alleged "cliffhanger" is almost completely ignored in Part 2. Dr. Sternau stumbles across knowledge of the Aztec gold----which he never uses, nor does anybody else!
Watched a couple of very different films at the weekend.
In the horror category, I went with Weapons. I liked it a lot, though some threads of the plot didn't seem to resolve themselves. It grew from a mystery thriller into outright George A Romero territory.
This was followed up by my first viewing of The Hangover. I was a bit tentative as I thought I wouldn't like it, but was pleasantly surprised. Several of the 'twists' were observable from over the horizon, however.
I went round to a friend's house to watch The Lovers on the Bridge (Les Amants du Pont-Neuf), which was a very strange film about two young people sleeping rough on the Pont-Neuf in Paris while it was closed for renovation. Juliette Binoche plays some sort of art student who is losing her sight, who takes up with Alex, a homeless young man (also a fire breather!) who lives on the bridge. He's played by Denis Lavant.
I watched the film with a French couple, who explained how well known the actors are in France.
By the end of the film I was hoping very much for a happy ending for the young couple - who were last seen on a barge heading for Le Havre. "But it's really boring in Le Havre!" the French couple said!
This past weekend, I was up in Rome, NY, for the annual Capitolfest at the old Capitol Theater. As always, this movie festival focuses on silent movies and early talkies. This year, the earliest film was “The Majesty of the Law” from 1915, while the most recent (not counting two short documentaries made for the festival) was “Night Work” from 1939. Another major focus of the festival is to show movies that are not readily available for viewing. Two of the movies this year had never before had a public showing in the United States. The festival runs Friday through Sunday, with movies running from 9:30am to 11:00pm on Friday and Saturday. The program on Sunday ended around 6:00pm.
The featured performers this year were Charlie Ruggles and Skeets Gallagher, both primarily known for their comedy work, so this year’s movie selection was heavy on comedies. Ruggles had a fine career as leading man in comedies, while Gallagher was usually cast in supporting roles in movies.
Getting back to “The Majesty of the Law” (1915), this was a fragment of a film, being only one reel out of the original five--but it happened to be Charlie Ruggles' film debut, and the one reel that exists features a lot of his character. After this movie, Ruggles did a couple more silents, but then returned to the stage until sound films came in. That is where he really made his mark. This movie is also notable for having been both written and directed by a woman, Julia Crawford Ivers--an unusual thing for 1914.
Another film shown at the festival, “The Still Alarm” (1926) was missing its second reel, which made following the story a bit tricky because, apparently, there was a 17 year time jump in Reel 2! Still, it brings home once again the need for film preservation. These older films need help to stay in one piece.
One of the funnier movies was “The Girl Habit” (1931), starring Charlie Ruggles as an engaged man who has the unfortunate habit of flirting with women. It starts out quietly enough with his fiancée scolding him for chatting with pretty women, but then one of his prior conquests decides to blackmail him with letters he wrote. When he tries to retrieve them, the woman’s husband comes in--and he is a gangster, who vows to kill Charlie. The rest of the movie is Charlie trying to avoid the gangster while still trying to convince his fiancée that everything is fine. It is much funnier than I make it sound. The movie also includes Margaret Dumont (best known as the standard foil for Groucho Marx) and Donald Meek.
Ruggles frequently teamed up with Mary Boland as an on-screen couple and we had two of their collaborations: “Mama Loves Papa” (1933) and “Night Work” (1939)--with Donald O’Conor (memorable in “Singing in the Rain”) as a child actor! There was also one movie with Ruggles and Alice Brady because Boland was unavailable: “Mind Your Own Business” (1936). All comedies.
As I mentioned, two films, both British, had never before been shown in the United States. The first, “Raise the Roof” (1930) starred Betty Balfour and was a standard backstage musical “Let’s put on a show!” type movie. Frankly, the U.S. didn’t miss much in not seeing this one. The other was “Mr. Satan” (1938) a spy drama with Skeets Gallagher in a supporting role as the hero’s best friend. Skeets is a photographer who accidentally gets a photo that shows the face of an arms dealer--who is supposed to have died a year or so earlier. Skeets and his reporter buddy (James Stephenson) set out to track down the arms dealer. While Skeets served as comic relief for the movie, it was nice to see him do some dramatic acting, especially near the end of the movie. This was certainly one of the highlights of the festival for me.
There was also an odd short called “Oh, Gosh, Pity Poor Oshkosh!” (1930) in which Skeets Gallagher and Harry Green perform a song warning the viewers against allowing Daylight Savings Time (DST) on the West Coast. (The theater owners were convinced that if they shifted to DST and it was light later into the evening, then business at movie theaters would drop.) Yes, even in 1930 people were arguing over DST!
But the best film of the weekend for me was “Captain Blood” (1924) starring J. Warren Kerrigan and Jean Paige. Of course, the more famous version was in 1935 with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland. Now, in those days, when a sound film was going to remake a popular silent film, the studio would go to great lengths to remove/suppress the earlier version from circulation. A complete print of the 1924 silent version had not been available to viewers for quite some time, but Warner Brothers did have a print of the original film struck from the original negative back in 1935. Why? Because they wanted to see if they could re-use some of the sea battle shots for the 1935 film. After all, that is much cheaper than re-doing the battles! As it turned out, they only used one shot from the 1924 version....but the end result was that their print of the the 1924 film was left with gaps for all the action scenes that they had cut out to consider! The Library of Congress set about trying to find copies of these missing scenes to restore the 1924 version to its full length, which included using two 9.5mm prints. Trying to get a 9.5mm print to look like a 35mm print like the rest of the film took some fancy digital manipulation. In any event, the Library of Congress was finally able to make available a complete 2K master of the 1924 movie, creating a new 35mm print which is what was shown at the festival. Film restoration at its best! The movie ran 110 minutes and is thrilling. The battle scenes are great and the sinking of the ship Arabella is one of the best ship-sinking scenes I have ever watched.
Next year’s feature stars will be Marian Nixon and Jack Oakie.
Last weekend Mr Cats and I attended a screening of The Odyssey in our village centre (the old school hall). Since several scenes were filmed here and hereabouts (Scotland and the North Sea impersonating the Med - it’s just as well they filmed last summer, because this year the similarity is hard to find) the audience was inclined to nudge and murmur when a recognisable shot appeared. Because we are Scots and therefore polite, no one actually said anything aloud.
I thought the film was pretty good, if a bit loud and long. I did wish the the local group had not decided to use a version with subtitles, as it really was loud enough, and I find it had to ignore words. It was bad enough for the dialogue, but ridiculous when it said things like ‘Music gets louder’ or ‘Menacing music’ or whatever. I can’t imagine that this would be of any help to anyone who couldn’t hear anything! It made me want to giggle when I should have been rooted to the spot with fear.
I have the same problem with subtitles. I remember going to see an arty English film in France once, and caught myself ignoring the dialogue and solemnly reading the French subtitles instead.
Comments
I should find it and watch it again.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, there was a hugely popular German writer of adventure stories: Karl May. He wrote a lot of other stuff, too, but let's focus on his adventure stories. His fame reached others countries, but he never quite clicked with the English speaking audience. But in Germany, Karl May is legendary--a national institution. (His actual life is interesting, what with prison and shamelessly lying self-promotion---but let's leave that for another day.)
His most popular and famous stories are Westerns--yeah, set in the American West that he had never set foot in when he wrote the stories. These feature German adventurer Old Shatterhand and his blood-brother and Apache chief Winnetou. But he also wrote a series of stories (called the "Orient Cycle") featuring Kara Ben Nemsi, a German adventurer in North Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans during the late Ottoman Empire. And then there are the lesser tales, not as popular, featuring German doctor/adventurer Dr. Karl Sternau, usually in Mexico and Central America.
In the 1960s, German studio Rialto Films got the rights to May's Western novels and put out films with Old Shatterhand and Winnetou (and make no mistake--Winnetou is no Tonto; he is arguably the central character supported by his blood brother Shatterhand). These films were very successful.
But another German studio, CCC Films decided to get in on the act. They did not have the rights to the actual May stories, but they decided to use the characters---and, in a jaw-dropping development, used the SAME ACTORS as Rialto used, with Lex Barker being Old Shatterhand and Pierre Brice as Winnetou. And they put out two Westerns. And CCC did have the rights to do other Karl May films, and also put out films for those other intellectual properties.
And that brings me to this box set put out by Eureka! under its Masters of Cinema label. It is called "Adventure Calls: Karl May at CCC" and it features two movies with Old Shatterhand (Lex Barker) and Winnetou (Pierre Brice); three movies with Kara Ben Nemsi (also Lex Barker); and two movies with Dr. Karl Sternau (you guessed it--also Lex Barker). That American Lex Barker was apparently considered the archetype of Karl May's German heroes is probably worthy of study--but by somebody other than me!
So, with that background, I will be giving reviews of the seven films in this set. First up will be Old Shatterhand (1964). Stay tuned!
It is not totally clear what the bad guy hopes to get out of this, but there is some loose talk about land deals...suggesting that he expects to take over the Apache lands once the military kills them. But motive is clearly a MacGuffin for the action.
The plot has a number of nice twists, as the good guys get evidence to clear the Apaches, and then the bad guys take that evidence away. And the good guys get more evidence. And lose it to the bad guys. and so on until the climactic battle scene.
This movie looks very good. CCC put a ton of money into it, which is not at all CCC's standard operating procedure. But this movie was special and became the most expensive German film of the 1960s. And it looks it on the screen. Wide screen with great sets, beautiful vistas (in Croatia, I think--but don't quote me). The battle scenes employ a large enough group of extras to be convincing. It is a German Western that easily stands up to Hollywood Westerns of the same period.
It is a good Western. If you like Westerns, you will likely enjoy this film.
I'm not into Westerns (I'm sure I could find one I'd like), but I am curious as to whether they are in German with subtitles.
The movie is in German with English subtitles. But there is also the option to listen to an English language dubbed version. But here is the twist--there is no way to see a version of the movie that is NOT dubbed. Even the German version is dubbed. The cast was multinational: German, French, American, Israeli....So, for example, Lex Barker, when filming, was speaking in English and then his voice was dubbed into German for the German language version. But others in the cast were speaking German or other languages.
So any version of the movie where the audio is in a single language is a dubbed version.
Personally, I chose to listen to the German version and read the subtitles, in part because I am trying to learn German. And hearing German spoken with a slow Western drawl is an experience!
OMG it would be cool if someone put out a DVD where you could choose the originally recorded audio for everybody, with English subtitles. So some people would be in French, German, etc. But they’d all understand each other… you could show it at Pentecost! 😃
The exception was Kiri Te Kanawa as Rosalinda. She sang her solos in English, as I recall, but she sang duets in whatever language her partner was singing in.
[Emily Litella]
Poor bats! Whyever would someone want to say “Die, fledermaus! Die!” They should live! A good long proper bat’s life! And eat toast! And fly free with all their cute little bat friends! Did you know they eat bugs? Imagine what it would be like without them! What a sad, sad—
What’s that? … Oh. Oh, that’s very different.
Never mind! 🤓
[/Emily Litella]
But here is an interesting trivia point. The prior movie, Old Shatterhand, came out in April of 1964. This movie came out in December of 1968. What happened?
This bring us back to my earlier post. Remember I mentioned that CCC did not have the rights to Karl May's actual Western novels? Those rights were held by Rialto. But CCC could use the characters of Winnetou & Shatterhand and then, cheekily, cast the same actors as Rialto was using. Of course, there was litigation! The settlement was that Old Shatterhand could be released but CCC had to agree not to use the characters again until Rialto was done with them. The last Rialto film was released in December of 1966. By then, the studio felt the public interest in the series had faded. And they were right. CCC's 1968 film did not do very well on release and the series ended.
Next up in the box set are films based on Karl May's "Orient" stories. CCC did have the rights to May's stories for these movies, and the three films came out in 1964 & 1965. I have no idea what they will be like, but I see the first is directed by Robert Siodmak.
This has me whether this was how pre-WWI German sounded in the US - I seem to recall there were a lot of German speakers in the US west.
Is it great art? No.
Did we laugh like drains? Yes... yes we did.
It's a tribute to the silent film era. The minions end up being Keystone Cops-style film stars, and of course the arrival of sound makes things difficult for them. (No, we're not talking ISngin' in the Rain here although it was in my head the whole time!)
So many classic silent film gags - Buster Keaton with the house frame falling round him, for instance. The plot is pretty much irrelevant but ends satisfactorily.
Their nonsense language is always good for a giggle too - lots of French, Spanish, Italian and even Japanese (they referred to a train as 'shinkansen' which made me laugh).
The Shoot (1964). Direct by Robert Siodmak. The title is a little odd. "The Shoot" is a person, the mysterious leader of a bandit gang terrorizing the Kosovo/Montenegro region. The German title is "Der Schut"---but "Schut" is apparently not a German word. In the movie, a character references a Turkish dictionary to decide that "Schut" means "yellow"--so the villain is supposed to have a yellow complexion. In the original novel this probably worked, but in the movie the villain does not have such a complexion, so the name remains...curious.
The hero is German adventurer Kara Ben Nemsi (which translates as "Karl from Germany"). I laughed earlier that Lex Barker was cast as the hero in all these movies...but I have to withdraw the joke, at least partially. Early in the movie, Kara Ben Nemsi is being described with the words that "the Indians have christened him Old Shatterhand for with his fist he is capable of overpowering the strongest of opponents." In other words, Old Shatterhand (see prior movie) IS Kara Ben Nemsi. He just changed continents. So of course he is played by the same actor!
The movie is quite good. Kara Ben Nemsi is helped by his Muslim sidekick (and comic relief) Hadschi. They are on the trail of "the Shoot" who has kidnaped their friend. There is also a comic English character, Sir David, and his manservant Archie, which very much follows the Bertie Wooster/Jeeves relationship. In a lovely scene, Kara Ben Nemsi's sidekick tries to impress them by saying they can trust him because of the length of his name: Hadschi Halef Omar Ben Hadschi Abul Abbas Ibn Hadschi Dawud al Gossarah. Archie responds that his name is Archibald Douglas Jonathan Timothy George Kenneth Clarence Croutwell of Gallwey Fillmore Percival Dyron Winston Oliver Howard Christopher Marmaduke McFlipp...and, no, he doesn't trust him!
They spent money on this movie. Beautiful scenery, beautiful sets and costumes. The comic relief is often actually funny (an unusual circumstance in my experience). And, in the final confrontation, the female lead saves our hero (Kara Ben Nemsi)--while being whipped, proving that she is more than just eye-candy. And, trying not to give too many spoilers, but in a film with a lot of comic relief and adventure, right at the end there is a completely unexpected death that is quite moving.
So, overall, I give "The Shoot (Der Schut)" a high recommendation. The adventures of Kara Ben Nemsi will continue in the next film...
Meanwhile, in one of the regions of Kurdistan, the local governor (appointed and trusted by the Padischah) is Machredsch of Mosul. He and his Turkish guards stop at a well. But the well belongs to an Arab tribe (Kurds, perhaps...it is Kurdistan, after all), the Haddedin. Ahmed el Corda, son of the Haddedin sheik Mohammed stops Machredsch and tells him that nobody (not even the Padischah himself) can take water from the well without the sheik's permission. "The law of the desert," apparently. A fight breaks out and Machredsch captured Ahmed, accuses him of killing four men, and plans to have him executed in a few days time. Maybe he did kill them; the fight scene was a little chaotic and I only saw one person whom he might have killed. But clearly we are meant to view Machredsch as the villain of the piece, exceeding his lawful authority.
It turns out that the Haddedin tribe is the tribe of Kara's friend Hadschi, and the sheik asks for help. And our hero agrees, hoping to stop any hostilities between his friends the Haddedins and his friend the Padischah.
The plot gets more convoluted after that, as loyalties of secondary characters switch regularly depending on who is bribing them at the moment. And some heavy-handed comic relief from Sir David and Archie gets slipped in. Somehow Chaldeans get involved, too, although I think I missed the explanation for that. But, as we all expected, it all ends with a confrontation between Kara Ben Nemsi and Machredsch of Mosul.
Not a great movie by any means, but I gather it gets shown during the Christmas holidays, and it is good, simple entertainment for that period.
That leaves us with one last film featuring Kara Ben Nemsi. I have not watched it yet, but I can tell you that there is an interesting behind-the-scenes story to go with it! Stay tuned!
“Dinogeist,” free on Tubi…
https://youtu.be/hQTfzjgQqUQ?is=6Jdw3KWtJWSOW47g
By the way, I got through about 10 minutes of Dinogeist. It was bad but not in a “so bad it’s good” way.
The thing is, this sequel was filmed at the same time as the prior movie was. If you know you are going to make a sequel, that makes financial sense: you only have to set up the scenery once but get two films out of it. Quite the cost savings! None of that is surprising.
But another attempt at saving money was: the actors were not told that they were making two movies! They all thought the scenes they were filming were part of one movie. They did not know about the second movie until it hit the theaters! And, yes, there was litigation. Main star Lex Barker sued on the grounds that he had only been hired for one movie. He won, and he got paid. I have no idea what happened with the other actors.
The CCC box set concludes with two movies based on Karl May's Mexican/Aztec stories. I have learned that (much like the last two movies) the two Aztec films are really part 1 & 2 of the same story. As such, I will not review them until after I have watched both.
https://www.hysteria-lives.co.uk/hysterialives/Hysteria/murder_mansion.htm
"The Treasure of the Aztecs" and "The Pyramid of the Sun God." Released a month apart in 1965 (made after "The Shoot" but before "Through Wild Kurdistan").
These two movies were always marketed as being Part 1 and Part 2 (which is good because otherwise the end of Part 1 seems blah). Lex Barker is back, now playing Dr. Karl Sternau, physician, surgeon and spy. He is in Mexico to support Benito Juarez as Mexico struggles to throw off the French rule and Emperor Maximilian. BUT before we do all that, we meet a grandfather and his granddaughter, the last two direct descendants of Montezuma. They alone have the secret to the Aztec gold. Why do they hoard it instead of use some to live a good life? Actually, the granddaughter Karja basically asks that question, albeit in the less selfish mode of "Why don't we just use this money to support Juarez's fight for all of Mexico?" Her grandfather tells her the gold must only be used once an heir to Montezuma rules Mexico.
Yeah, whatever. Basically, the Aztec gold plot gets put on the back-burner (until the second film) as we develop several conflicting characters. There is renegade Captain Verdoja, who Juarez throws out of the ranks for misconduct. There is the disreputable gambler Count Alfonso (son of a friend of Dr. Sternau, but who is cut off from the will because of his misconduct)(the friend also supports Juarez, so Alfonso has a grudge there too). There is the female villain, Josefa, who flirts with pretty much all of the above and more. But it is clear all she wants is gold. Oh, and there is a tribe of Indians who also apparently want the Aztec gold. Naturally, all these villains work at cross-purposes and all of them dislike the honorable Dr. Sternau.
Like "The Shoot" these two movies were directed by Robert Siodmak. He does not do as good a job as he did on "The Shoot"--but he probably did it better than any other director trying to work the same overcomplicated plot.
I would rate not particularly good, but not horrible. The end is a little messy, but again that was because there were too many stray plot lines to be tied up. I mentioned the blah ending to Part 1---it is made even more blah in Part 2 as the alleged "cliffhanger" is almost completely ignored in Part 2. Dr. Sternau stumbles across knowledge of the Aztec gold----which he never uses, nor does anybody else!
So that is it! The box set is done.
In the horror category, I went with Weapons. I liked it a lot, though some threads of the plot didn't seem to resolve themselves. It grew from a mystery thriller into outright George A Romero territory.
This was followed up by my first viewing of The Hangover. I was a bit tentative as I thought I wouldn't like it, but was pleasantly surprised. Several of the 'twists' were observable from over the horizon, however.
I watched the film with a French couple, who explained how well known the actors are in France.
By the end of the film I was hoping very much for a happy ending for the young couple - who were last seen on a barge heading for Le Havre. "But it's really boring in Le Havre!" the French couple said!
Trailer:
https://youtu.be/IoHWPAN6FPg?is=tNpmnA5Qylr-KsLA
The featured performers this year were Charlie Ruggles and Skeets Gallagher, both primarily known for their comedy work, so this year’s movie selection was heavy on comedies. Ruggles had a fine career as leading man in comedies, while Gallagher was usually cast in supporting roles in movies.
Getting back to “The Majesty of the Law” (1915), this was a fragment of a film, being only one reel out of the original five--but it happened to be Charlie Ruggles' film debut, and the one reel that exists features a lot of his character. After this movie, Ruggles did a couple more silents, but then returned to the stage until sound films came in. That is where he really made his mark. This movie is also notable for having been both written and directed by a woman, Julia Crawford Ivers--an unusual thing for 1914.
Another film shown at the festival, “The Still Alarm” (1926) was missing its second reel, which made following the story a bit tricky because, apparently, there was a 17 year time jump in Reel 2! Still, it brings home once again the need for film preservation. These older films need help to stay in one piece.
One of the funnier movies was “The Girl Habit” (1931), starring Charlie Ruggles as an engaged man who has the unfortunate habit of flirting with women. It starts out quietly enough with his fiancée scolding him for chatting with pretty women, but then one of his prior conquests decides to blackmail him with letters he wrote. When he tries to retrieve them, the woman’s husband comes in--and he is a gangster, who vows to kill Charlie. The rest of the movie is Charlie trying to avoid the gangster while still trying to convince his fiancée that everything is fine. It is much funnier than I make it sound. The movie also includes Margaret Dumont (best known as the standard foil for Groucho Marx) and Donald Meek.
Ruggles frequently teamed up with Mary Boland as an on-screen couple and we had two of their collaborations: “Mama Loves Papa” (1933) and “Night Work” (1939)--with Donald O’Conor (memorable in “Singing in the Rain”) as a child actor! There was also one movie with Ruggles and Alice Brady because Boland was unavailable: “Mind Your Own Business” (1936). All comedies.
As I mentioned, two films, both British, had never before been shown in the United States. The first, “Raise the Roof” (1930) starred Betty Balfour and was a standard backstage musical “Let’s put on a show!” type movie. Frankly, the U.S. didn’t miss much in not seeing this one. The other was “Mr. Satan” (1938) a spy drama with Skeets Gallagher in a supporting role as the hero’s best friend. Skeets is a photographer who accidentally gets a photo that shows the face of an arms dealer--who is supposed to have died a year or so earlier. Skeets and his reporter buddy (James Stephenson) set out to track down the arms dealer. While Skeets served as comic relief for the movie, it was nice to see him do some dramatic acting, especially near the end of the movie. This was certainly one of the highlights of the festival for me.
There was also an odd short called “Oh, Gosh, Pity Poor Oshkosh!” (1930) in which Skeets Gallagher and Harry Green perform a song warning the viewers against allowing Daylight Savings Time (DST) on the West Coast. (The theater owners were convinced that if they shifted to DST and it was light later into the evening, then business at movie theaters would drop.) Yes, even in 1930 people were arguing over DST!
But the best film of the weekend for me was “Captain Blood” (1924) starring J. Warren Kerrigan and Jean Paige. Of course, the more famous version was in 1935 with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland. Now, in those days, when a sound film was going to remake a popular silent film, the studio would go to great lengths to remove/suppress the earlier version from circulation. A complete print of the 1924 silent version had not been available to viewers for quite some time, but Warner Brothers did have a print of the original film struck from the original negative back in 1935. Why? Because they wanted to see if they could re-use some of the sea battle shots for the 1935 film. After all, that is much cheaper than re-doing the battles! As it turned out, they only used one shot from the 1924 version....but the end result was that their print of the the 1924 film was left with gaps for all the action scenes that they had cut out to consider! The Library of Congress set about trying to find copies of these missing scenes to restore the 1924 version to its full length, which included using two 9.5mm prints. Trying to get a 9.5mm print to look like a 35mm print like the rest of the film took some fancy digital manipulation. In any event, the Library of Congress was finally able to make available a complete 2K master of the 1924 movie, creating a new 35mm print which is what was shown at the festival. Film restoration at its best! The movie ran 110 minutes and is thrilling. The battle scenes are great and the sinking of the ship Arabella is one of the best ship-sinking scenes I have ever watched.
Next year’s feature stars will be Marian Nixon and Jack Oakie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R8FS1QHK-U
I thought the film was pretty good, if a bit loud and long. I did wish the the local group had not decided to use a version with subtitles, as it really was loud enough, and I find it had to ignore words. It was bad enough for the dialogue, but ridiculous when it said things like ‘Music gets louder’ or ‘Menacing music’ or whatever. I can’t imagine that this would be of any help to anyone who couldn’t hear anything! It made me want to giggle when I should have been rooted to the spot with fear.