Film Review: Winnetou and Old Firehand (Winnetou und sein Freund Old Firehand/Trouble at the Border, 1966)

drax(76)

Published in

Movies & TV Shows

Words

680

Reading

4 min

Listen

Play

(source: tmdb.org)

The author of this review first learned about certain practical aspects of film casting thanks to the popular series of 1960s West German westerns based on the novels by Karl May. The series was shot mostly in Yugoslavia and featured some notable Yugoslav film and television stars in various small roles. One of them was the young Croatian actor Boris Dvornik, who appeared in two films playing two different characters. The first one was Among Vultures, in which he played a thug. In the second film, Winnetou and Old Firehand, Dvornik played a Catholic priest.

The plot begins when a group of bandits attacks a small band of Apaches led by the famous chief Winnetou (played by Pierre Brice). The band is ultimately rescued by a small group of trappers, led by Old Firehand (played by Rod Cameron), known for his legendary marksmanship. Winnetou and his sister Nscho-tschi (played by Marie Versini) join them on the way to Miramonte, a small Mexican town where Winnetou hopes to find some justice for his tribesmen killed during the attack. The town, however, has serious problems of its own due to Billy-Bob (played by Walter Wilz), a man arrested by Sergeant Mendoza (played by Rik Battaglia) for murder. When it turns out that Billy-Bob is the brother of Silers (played by Harald Leipniz), the bandits’ vicious leader, it becomes very likely that the town will be attacked. Half of the people want to set Billy-Bob free in order to win Silers’ mercy, while the other half wants to keep him as a bargaining chip. When Billy-Bob dies in a botched escape attempt, the attack becomes inevitable. Old Firehand and Winnetou decide to stay and help the townsfolk defend themselves from the murderous hordes.

Made in 1966, Winnetou and Old Firehand is the eighth and penultimate film in the series starring Pierre Brice as Winnetou. By that time the series, immensely popular in Europe, began to lose steam and get competition from cheaper but edgier Italian “spaghetti westerns”. Aware of this, producer Horst Wendlandt and director Alfred Vohrer tried to add something different. Instead of using Karl May’s novels as a basis, they opted for Thunder at the Border, a novel by contemporary American authors David deReszke and C.B. Taylor, and had the characters of Winnetou, Nscho-tschi and Old Firehand inserted into the plot. There were also changes in the film’s style. Instead of recognisable themes by Martin Böttcher, viewers heard a new score by Peter Thomas. The setting was changed from the lush green Wild West of old romantic westerns into a sun-scorched, dirty and barren area on the U.S.–Mexico border, much closer to the Wild West portrayed in “spaghetti westerns”. The film also features much more psychotic and malevolent villains and some unpleasant scenes of dozens of people being massacred, with even some children getting killed. Those changes, however, did this film more harm than good at the box office. Winnetou and Old Firehand failed, and it was often attributed to Karl May and Winnetou fans, enraged over straying from the literal source and Winnetou actually not doing much in the film. On its own, however, this film is a solid, well-produced and well-directed western with a script that builds on the legacy of Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven. Scriptwriter Harald G. Petersson, however, adds a few touches of his own, by having Old Firehand (solidly played by veteran Canadian actor Rod Cameron) finding his long-lost love (played by Nadia Gray) as well as a romantic rival in the form of an eccentric English aristocrat, hysterically played by Viktor de Kowa in a way that spared no ethnic or cultural stereotype. Winnetou and Old Firehand is in the end a very short film, which didn’t allow some of its flaws to become apparent, and this is the reason why it could be entertaining even to an audience half a century after its premiere.

RATING: 6/10 (++)