German Western (non Winnetou or Karl May) Viewing Recommendations

The Saloon
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Hi all you SW lovers,

I’ve been looking to learn the basics of German as I have Italian, some French, and some Spanish covered, and was wondering what German made Westerns are good viewing to get started with. I plan on seeing the Winnetou films at some point, and wondered what other ones I should see. I know I want to see Die Holle von Manitoba (A Place Called Glory City) & Wer Kennt Johnny R.? (Who Killed Johnny R.?) with Lex Barker and Der Letzte Ritt nach Santa Cruz (The Last Ride to Santa Cruz) with Edmund Purdom and Mario Adorf, but not sure what else yet. If anyone knows any good ones I should check out, please feel free to list them below. If a similar topic to this exists already on the Forum, please leave a link to it. Thanks everyone.

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You might want to try out the East German DEFA westerns.

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Thank you Phil,

I actually did own the three films in that set for a number of years on DVD but I sold them last year because I just couldn’t get into them, and because I needed to scale down my collection. I appreciate their significance and importance, but for some reason they just didn’t appeal to me. I might try Tecumseh, Trail of the Falcon, and White Wolves on Blu Ray, and see if I like them. They’re about 10 Euros a piece so the price is fair. Thanks for the suggestion.

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Hm, that`s difficult :wink:
The German Westerns are very talky and “obsolete” from nowadys point of view.
I like the Lex Barker movies you have mentioned (DIE HÖLLE VON MANITOBA , WER KENNT JOHNNY R?) and also DER LETZTE RITT NACH SANTA CRUZ is at least interesting due to the “classic” cast.
You may als check the following:

  • “Teutonen Western” DVD Collection from Koch including:
    *DIE FLUßPIRATEN VOM MISSISSIPPI
    *DIE GOLDSUCHER VON ARKANSAS
    *DIE SCHWARZEN ADLER VON SANTA FE

Then maybe also:

  • SIE NANNTEN IHN GRINGO
  • DUELL VOR SONNENUNTERGANG

If learning German basics is in focus I recommend to watch the first two Leone Spaghettis (that are German co-productions) with the orginal German cinema dub. German speaking actors speak with their own voice there and this movies are also not so talky in German dub :wink:

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Thanks very much Grinder,

I was actually thinking of those titles myself but they slipped my mind in the initial post. Are the films on DVDS, and are they still in print? I think I might try looking for scenes of Per un Pugni di Dollari in German on YouTube, as I would only need a few scenes to study. Thanks again.

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Here are some links:

(The current price is more than over the top!!!. It may be better to check Ebay, etc.There you may get it for 10-20 Euro)

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The Lex Barker double is really good

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Thanks for the links Grinder,

I’m actually in the process of getting an Amazon account so this works out great. I think I might wait until a company like FilmJuwelen gets the rights to the Lex Barker Westerns as I read from a translated version review on the site that the picture ratio wasn’t correct. I’ll keep an eye on eBay for a good price though. Thanks again

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Two footnotes to the German Western films mentioned by Phil, Grinder and Sebastian above: Westerns were made in Germany as early as the 1910s, though it seems most of those so-called “Isarwestern” are lost today. – A more recent German Western well worth watching/seeing would be Thomas Arslan’s Gold (2013).

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Thanks Companero,

I’ll definitely check them out.