BD 364-367 Eastern Trails: The Western at DEFA

[Finch]

SYNOPSIS
A close relation to the Spaghetti Western, Indianerfilme (later called “Red Westerns” due to their politics) were some of the most popular genre movies produced by East Germany’s state-operated film studio, DEFA. Focusing on the struggles of indigenous tribes against European settlers, they disrupted the frontier myths central to the American Western and made a bonafide superstar of Gojko Mitić, whose appearances in a long line of action-packed Westerns for DEFA made him one of the most famous faces in Europe. Mitić stars in all four of the films presented here: Chingachgook the Great Serpent, Fatal Error, Apaches and Blood Brothers.

Based on James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer, Chingachgook the Great Serpent sees the eponymous Mohican set out to rescue his kidnapped bride-to-be (Andrea Drahota) with the help of a hunter known as Deerslayer (Rolf Römer). In Fatal Error, Native Americans living at the foot of the Rocky Mountains come to regret doing business with the corrupt Wyoming Oil Company. Apaches follows a young warrior as he sets out to avenge the massacre of his tribe at the hands of a ruthless mercenary (Milan Beli). Finally, Blood Brothers stars Dean Reed – an actor and singer-songwriter nicknamed the “Red Elvis” – as an American deserter who comes to fight alongside a Native American tribe.

Following the enormous success of The Sons of Great Bear in 1966, East Germany’s series of Indianerfilme remained popular for the next two decades, finding enthusiastic audiences throughout Central and Eastern Europe and even as far afield as Cuba. The Masters of Cinema series is thrilled to present a selection of DEFA’s “Red Westerns” on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

SPECIAL FEATURES
Limited Collector's Edition Box Set [2000 copies]
Limited edition hardbound slipcase and interior packaging featuring new artwork by Colin Murdoch [2000 copies]
Limited Edition 60-page collector’s book featuring part one of a new extended essay on the history of the DEFA Indianerfilme by Lee Broughton, author of The Euro-Western [2000 copies]
All four films presented in 1080p HD from restorations by the DEFA Foundation
Original German soundtracks
Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
New audio commentary on Apaches by film historian Michael Brooke
Singing Cowboy – new interview on Dean Reed and Blood Brothers with East German cinema expert Seán Allan, co-editor of Re-Imagining DEFA
Old West, New Perspective – new video essay on depictions of American history in DEFA’s Indianerfilme by Western scholar Jenny Barrett, author of Shooting the Civil War
Archival musical performance by Dean Reed

[MichaelB]

Something that the blurb doesn't mention is that Fatal Error co-stars the wildly unlikely apparition of a young Armin Mueller-Stahl, very much channelling Jean-Paul Belmondo.

He was already pushing fifty when he defected Westwards, making films with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, István Szabó and Agnieszka Holland before ending up in Hollywood and an Oscar nomination—but he'd already had a much less heralded 25-year career in East Germany, where among other things he played a Stasi agent in a popular mid-Seventies TV series, but because it's an East German production he was the James Bond-style hero.

[TMDaines]

As this is UK only like Great Bear, and unlike the Karl May box that was US too, is anyone familiar enough with these films to suggest whether the BBFC is going censor them? Are there horse falls again?