Director: Robert Siodmak, Hugo Fregonese, Fran Josef Gottlieb, Harald Reinl
Starring: Lex Barker, Pierre Bryce, Ralf Wolter, Marie Versini, Gérard Barray, Daliah Lavi, Rik Battaglia
Country: West Germany
Running Time: 12 hours
Year: 1964-68
BBFC Certificate: 15
The Karl May adventure films starring Lex Barker were highly influential in the early-1960s, igniting the Eurowestern subgenre. Little known in English speaking countries, they were a series of huge international features which would lay the groundwork for Spaghetti-Westerns, and future long-running franchises in exotic locations, with comic-book style storytelling and mass appeal – namely, the Indiana Jones franchise.
Eureka Entertainment has put together quite a unique and vast package with the West German production company CCC Film Kunst’s seven films using the Karl May IP, as part of its Masters of Cinema series. The German author who wrote in the late 20th Century was wildly popular in his homeland, where his works seemingly remain beloved, but aren’t well-known anywhere else.
In the 1960s, films focusing on his characters Old Shatterhand and Winnetou were produced by German production company Rialto Film. Then, CCC decided to exploit this success by buying up rights to those characters and May’s other stories, set in the Balkans and Kurdistan.
Funnily enough, this appears to be the third time Eureka has made a boxset about CCC sort of replicating Rialto’s work, with the Mabuse Lives and Terror in The Fog boxsets. (Which begs the question, how hard are they fighting to license the Rialto films, the very movies which began these whacky Eurowestern and Krimi crazes?)
Regardless, these are breathtaking works and the stories behind them, centred around CCC founder and prolific producer Artur Brauner, are fascinating, just like the other aforementioned boxsets. What’s really intriguing is the story of the author Karl May, who was a conman who claimed his fictional globetrotting adventure books were semi-autobiographical. This was despite the fact he’d never actually left Germany until later in life, after his stories had become successful.
Eureka has split the seven films, made between 1964 and 1968, and restored in 4K from the original camera negatives, across four discs and into three defined sections. These are split into: May’s Westerns, featuring the exploits of Old Shatterhand and Winnetou; the Orient based films, set in the Balkans and Middle East; and finally, a double-feature set in Mexico.
American actor Lex Barker stars in all of these as the central hero, he’s definitely the same character in the Westerns and Orient films as Old Shatterhand and Kara Ben Nemsi, and he’s basically the same character in Mexico as Dr Karl Sternau. The Tarzan and La Dolce Vita (1960) actor is simply fantastic throughout these films and very convincing as an action hero, straight out of a comic book. He had the brawn and physique of a stereotypical ‘uber-mensch’ so he certainly looked the part.
However, and I think this is why his career didn’t work out Stateside, he’s missing the grit of the Hollywood stars, coming across overly saintly and at times, it can seem a little sickly sweet.
Starring alongside Barker in each of these films was German actor Ralf Wolter as the sidekick comic-relief. He was a delight to watch as he performed wonderfully with some of the cheesy jokes and silly one-liners he was given. He does a great job with a varying quality of material, to put it diplomatically.
In the Orient, he truly shines as a character with a comically overlong name called Hadschi Halef Omar Ben Hadschi Abul Abbas Ibn Hadschi Dawud al Gossarah. Then, in his final guise, in Mexico, he plays a travelling cuckoo clock salesman. It makes me smile to think back on his performances.
Another key player worth noting is Rik Battaglia who played the bad guy across three of these movies with a devilish sort of intensity. Battaglia went through hell for CCC, managing to pick up hepatitis and a particularly agonising beard infection during his time making these movies – which he recounts on the special features.
The real highlight of these films are the breathtaking sweeping landscape shots which are underscored by soaring melodic music. These shots give the films a rich and vivid dreamlike quality. Especially, when the focus is gliding over the swelling waterfalls of Krka Falls. It’s fitting there’s this air of unreality, non-realness, to the setting, as May’s books were far removed from reality.
Most of the films were shot in Croatia, then Yugoslavia, and Spain. Every exterior scene, which is most of them, looks an absolute work of art – which is helped by the fact they were shot in stunning 70mm. These films were marketed as as B-movie pictures in Europe but they had huge budgets and brought together stars from all over Europe to maximise their appeal.
The Western films, Old Shatterhand and The Valley of Death, are easily the strongest films in the collection. They both feel quite far removed from the other pictures, in tone, which makes sense as they were original stories just using the May characters. They are brutal with good and innocent characters caught in the firing line. Pierre Brice was phenomenal as Winnetou, who admittedly looks more like a 70s glam-rock star than the leader of a Native American tribe. Old Shatterhand also features the first ever nude scene in a German film. The Valley of Death had a gloriously twisty plot with a fiery explosive ending – which looked phenomenal in HD.
These tales have aged well as the Indigenous people, the “Indians” as they were once best known, are the good guys for a change. So, you feel like you’re on the side of justice throughout these movies, which book-end CCC’s Old Shatterhand movies, featuring their first and final outing into Karl May’s Westerns. These first two films are a lot better than the rest of them.
I felt the Orient series, featuring The Shoot, Through Wild Kurdistan and In the Kingdom of the Silver Lion, were weakest of the three series. These are lighter and more comical in tone. The true highlight of these films are the characters of Sir David Lindsay and his butler Archibald, played by Dieter Borsche and Chris Howland. They play a pair of bumbling Brits who stumble through the film as comic relief, armed with the butler’s huge satchel which magically seems to contain just about every item imaginable for a luxury trip.
Despite strong performances, including some of Barker’s best acting (there’s an emotional scene where he’s mourning the loss of his dead horse), I found these three films quite sluggish. At this point, the storybeats just felt so repetitive and generic. It felt like the series was spinning its wheels with Kara Ben Nemsi saving the day all too smoothly.
Although, the Lawrence of Arabia feel of the movies is quite enthralling and the cinematography of the Arabian décor and jewellery glistens off the screen. It’s the beauty of these movies that really pulled me through some of the more turgid moments.
Then, capping off the collection are the Mexican/Aztec themed films, The Treasure of the Aztecs and The Pyramid of the Sun God. These were stronger than the Orient series with the tone being slightly darker. They were also supposed to be one movie, so the storytelling feels more concentrated. There were stunning shots of the Aztec treasure and some wonderful supporting performances. The standouts were femme-fatale actress Michèle Girardon, as Josefa Cortejo, who had some stunning costumes, and Gérard Barray, who was wonderfully slimy as Count Alfonso.
Films:
Special Features:
- Limited Edition Hardbound Set [2000 copies]
- Limited Edition 60-page collector’s book featuring new writing on Karl May on page and screen by German popular cinema experts Tim Bergfelder and Holger Haase, a profile of Lex Barker by Boris Brosowski and an essay on Old Shatterhand and Winnetou by Lee Broughton, author of The Euro-Western [2000 copies]
- 1080p HD presentations of all seven features from 4K restorations of the original camera negatives undertaken by CCC Film
- Original German audio tracks
- Optional English subtitles, newly revised for this release
- New introductions to each film by Sir Christopher Frayling, author of Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone
- New audio commentaries on Old Shatterhand and The Treasure of the Aztecs by film historian David Kalat
- Karl May at CCC – new interview with producer Alice Brauner, managing director of CCC Film and daughter of CCC founder Artur Brauner
- Prodigal Son – new interview with film historian Sheldon Hall on the late career of Robert Siodmak
- Archival making of documentary on Old Shatterhand and Winnetou and Shatterhand in the Valley of Death
- Archival featurette on Daliah Lavi, star of Old Shatterhand
- Archival interview with Bernhard Schmid, co-editor and contributor to Karl May Verlag
- Archival featurette on the restoration of The Shoot, Through Wild Kurdistan and In the Kingdom of the Silver Lion
- Archival news footage on The Shoot
- Original theatrical trailers
English dubbed tracks for Old Shatterhand, The Valley of Death and The Shoot – Strangely enough, Eureka doesn’t mention the English dubbed tracks in the list above. These were really well performed and synced up almost seamlessly with the live-action performances. Unfortunately, the tracks don’t cover the whole of each film, as they were made for shorter edits, with the English subtitles and German dub having to be used in various scenes.
Introductions to each film by Sir Christopher Frayling – These were slickly produced, and Sir Christopher is an excellent storyteller with a wry sense of humour. His first of these is a 25-minute explanation of Karl May and his influence on culture. The rest are each around three minutes. I can see why they’ve been branded ‘introductions’, although they should be named ‘afterwards’ or similar, as they should be watched after the movie since he discusses key plot points.
Audio commentaries on Old Shatterhand and The Treasure of the Aztecs by film historian David Kalat – Kalat, for my money, has to be the greatest film commentator in the business. Eureka fans will have heard him on various other boxsets, generally covering German films. He’s amusing and incisive, as usual, and each of his tracks feels like a real journey through the context of the movies and their influence on film. His knowledge of German cinema seems to know no bounds.
Archival making of documentaries x 2 (38 mins overall) – The first making-of documentary, covering Old Shatterhand and The Valley of Death, was 17 minutes in length. The second, covering the Orient series, was 21 minutes. These were superb and featured interviews with Artur Brauner, and members of the cast and the crew. The first one on the mayhem that went into making Old Shatterhand was particularly brilliant. It was also amusing to learn that the actors and director didn’t realise they were shooting two movies with Through Wild Kurdistan and In the Kingdom of the Silver Lion.
Interview with producer Alice Brauner (15 mins) – Another really slickly made interview. It’s fascinating to hear Brauner speak about how CCC shaped her childhood, her father’s unrelenting work rate and her take on the Karl May movies.
Archival featurette on Daliah Lavi (2 mins) – This was a short but sweet insight into the talented actress who was so prolific in the 60s.
Interview with film historian Sheldon Hall on the late career of director Robert Siodmak (26 mins) – This interview was riveting, especially for those who know Siodmak’s American noir movies. Hall provides a detailed insight into Siodmak’s life and movie career, from his early silent directorial debut, working with the like of Fritz Lang, to becoming a huge success in Hollywood, and then finally going back to Europe to make films.
Archival featurette on the restoration process (3 minutes) – While it’s short, it features charming historic footage of the film restoration process in the early 2000s.
Archival interview with Bernhard Schmid, co-editor and contributor to Karl May Verlag (6 mins) – Interesting interview about the Karl May books and how they compare to the films.
Limited Edition 60-page collector’s book – This came packed full of text and complementary imagery, featuring in-depth insights into May and Barker. A fantastic addition to an already stacked package.
Disc/package:
Adventure Calls! Karl May at CCC (Limited Edition Box Set) (Blu-ray) releases on 27th April, 2026.
