The sauerkraut western is the German equivalent to the spaghetti western. The main difference is that spaghetti westerns were always aiming for an international audience. Sauerkraut westerns were aimed more at the German domestic market, tapping into the immense popularity of the genre in Germany.
That popularity was due to Karl May (1842-1912), a popular German writer who launched a pop culture phenomenon with his novels of the Wild West. His books have sold around 200 million copies and are still in print. May’s novels were written at a time when the Wild West still existed. And at the time he wrote his best-known westerns he had never been anywhere near America. He wrote about the Wild West of his own imagination. And the entire German nation went totally Wild West crazy.
The main heroes of May’s westerns were a German settler nicknamed Old Shatterhand and his best friend, the Apache chief Winnetou. May’s novels were very very sympathetic indeed to the Apaches and this is reflected in the movies.
Between 1962 and 1968 there were seventeen Karl May movies, most of them based on his westerns.
Winnetou and the Crossbreed opens with the 21st birthday of Apanatschi (Uschi Glas). Her father is a European settler, her mother is an Apache. Her father’s birthday present to her is a gold mine. This present turns out to be a very bad idea. Some very unpleasant people find out about it and they’re determined to steal the gold.
A gang of bandits and cutthroats gets involved. There is treachery among the bad guys. Apanatschi and her kid brother are kidnapped.
Fortunately somebody was smart enough to contact Old Shatterhand (Lex Barker). He’s not going to allow this kind of wickedness to go on. And if Old Shatterhand comes to the rescue he’ll have Winnetou beside him.
It ends up in a full-scale war between the good guys and the bad guys, with lots of gunplay and lots of explosions.
The bad guys are holed up in a little town that is almost completely lawless. People are constantly getting shot. Within a few minutes we get every single western cliché you can name. At times it’s almost like parody. It’s a bit like Blazing Saddles, but played straight.
Of course there’s a classic western saloon and there are saloon girls. They’re quite obviously whores, but interestingly they’re very much on the side of the Good Guys.
What’s fascinating is that this movie gives the impression of having been made by people who hadn’t seen any of the great grown-up psychologically complex westerns of the golden age of westerns (from about 1946 to 1962). It’s as if their idea of a western was drawn entirely from the B-westerns of the 1930s. In this movie there are very straightforward Good Guys and Bad Guys.
This is a movie totally imbued with the sensibility of 1960s German pop cinema. Just as the German Edgar Wallace krimis are supposedly set in England but get every single detail delightfully wrong so this movie gets everything about the Wild West delightfully wrong. And as with the Edgar Wallace krimis it’s the fact that everything is slightly wrong that gives this movie such a wonderfully delirious and crazy flavour.
And it really does have that B-movie feel - it’s just pure entertainment packed with action and thrills.
Pierre Brice (a Frenchman) does the noble Apache warrior thing quite well. Lex Barker makes a fine hero. Uschi Glas as Apanatschi is a fine heroine - she’s lively and likeable and she’s as cute as a button. All the bad guys are played with gusto.
Winnetou and the Crossbreed is nothing like a spaghetti western. The violence is never graphic and there’s not a trace of cynicism. It’s family entertainment but it is fun and it’s recommended.
The Treasure of the Silver Lake and Winnetou and the Crossbreed are both included in a German three-movie DVD which offers the movies in both English-dubbed versions and in German with English subtitles. I recommend the German-language version because it gives more of a non-Hollywood feel.
I’ve reviewed the first of Karl May’s Wild West novels, Winnetou I, and I cannot recommend it, except for its considerable historical significance. It’s slow and dull. I’ve also reviewed the first of the Karl May movies, The Treasure of the Silver Lake (1962), and it’s a rollicking tale of adventure in the Old West and it’s huge amounts of fun.
That popularity was due to Karl May (1842-1912), a popular German writer who launched a pop culture phenomenon with his novels of the Wild West. His books have sold around 200 million copies and are still in print. May’s novels were written at a time when the Wild West still existed. And at the time he wrote his best-known westerns he had never been anywhere near America. He wrote about the Wild West of his own imagination. And the entire German nation went totally Wild West crazy.
The main heroes of May’s westerns were a German settler nicknamed Old Shatterhand and his best friend, the Apache chief Winnetou. May’s novels were very very sympathetic indeed to the Apaches and this is reflected in the movies.
Winnetou and the Crossbreed opens with the 21st birthday of Apanatschi (Uschi Glas). Her father is a European settler, her mother is an Apache. Her father’s birthday present to her is a gold mine. This present turns out to be a very bad idea. Some very unpleasant people find out about it and they’re determined to steal the gold.
A gang of bandits and cutthroats gets involved. There is treachery among the bad guys. Apanatschi and her kid brother are kidnapped.
Fortunately somebody was smart enough to contact Old Shatterhand (Lex Barker). He’s not going to allow this kind of wickedness to go on. And if Old Shatterhand comes to the rescue he’ll have Winnetou beside him.
The bad guys are holed up in a little town that is almost completely lawless. People are constantly getting shot. Within a few minutes we get every single western cliché you can name. At times it’s almost like parody. It’s a bit like Blazing Saddles, but played straight.
Of course there’s a classic western saloon and there are saloon girls. They’re quite obviously whores, but interestingly they’re very much on the side of the Good Guys.
What’s fascinating is that this movie gives the impression of having been made by people who hadn’t seen any of the great grown-up psychologically complex westerns of the golden age of westerns (from about 1946 to 1962). It’s as if their idea of a western was drawn entirely from the B-westerns of the 1930s. In this movie there are very straightforward Good Guys and Bad Guys.
And it really does have that B-movie feel - it’s just pure entertainment packed with action and thrills.
Pierre Brice (a Frenchman) does the noble Apache warrior thing quite well. Lex Barker makes a fine hero. Uschi Glas as Apanatschi is a fine heroine - she’s lively and likeable and she’s as cute as a button. All the bad guys are played with gusto.
The Treasure of the Silver Lake and Winnetou and the Crossbreed are both included in a German three-movie DVD which offers the movies in both English-dubbed versions and in German with English subtitles. I recommend the German-language version because it gives more of a non-Hollywood feel.
I’ve reviewed the first of Karl May’s Wild West novels, Winnetou I, and I cannot recommend it, except for its considerable historical significance. It’s slow and dull. I’ve also reviewed the first of the Karl May movies, The Treasure of the Silver Lake (1962), and it’s a rollicking tale of adventure in the Old West and it’s huge amounts of fun.
Entertaining mayhem, and quite stylishly made. Technically, it's not as good as the Leone films, but better than quite a few spaghetti westerns. It's also on Blu Ray, along with most of the Winnetou movies. Isn't this the one where Gotz George pretends to join the bad guys, and comes across as a German William Shatner, with extra ham?
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