Zambo Rides Again
Steve Nyland aka Squonkamatic, October 2013
German produced Westerns made in the former Yugoslavia during the 1960s are a pet favorite. The long running “Winnetou” series with Tarzan actor Lex Barker were as popular in Europe as the James Bond films, or any other semi-serial of related features. The best known examples of the Schnitzel Western form, they have an unreal quality about them, set in uniquely decorated East European hill country with rock formations even more bizarre in appearance to those used for locations by the Spaghetti Western directors in Spain. “The new old west” is what Roger Ebert called the look. North American Westerns all look the same, no offense intended. European made Westerns look like Star Trek episodes in comparison: “Fake”, confined to tightly claustrophobic sets, populated by actors costumed for style rather than authenticity.
... Not quite the same as the Italian Western film promotional artwork, is it.
This is a pretty smooth one. Samson/Hercules Peplum actor Brad "Zambo" Harris plays the secret federal agent who rides into a bloody landscape torn apart by Comanche raids on frontier settlements as reprisal for having traditional Native lands taken away by a would-be oil baron who sets up the U.S. Cavalry to take the fall for him. Or any other caucasians who happen by, the story opening with a massacre which would have been wholly unacceptable for American audiences in 1965. The film is brutally violent yet it’s cartoon violence rather than the bloody carnage of a Peckinpah. The look mimics the American productions which inspired the Italian, French and German filmmakers who churned these things out for a decade until the fad dried out once it devolved into almost shameful self-parody.
What is that ... Spanish?? English, French, Italian, Spanish, and German language versions of the Euro Western films were usually made for distribution to the various language regions were the form flourished in spite of indifference by North American film distributors. Some would be re-configured for television broadcast in drastically cut forms. But more obscure titles such of as this have been unavailable to English language audiences since the very early years of home video.
This one may not have the style or panache of a sumptuous Sergio Leone or Corbucci epic, instead still rooted in the Experimental era of the EuroWestern form prior to the grubby unwashed look of the Classic era productions. These helped set the tone, and gets the job over and done with quickly, with little time for remorse for the dead or character development. They are archetypes, roles crafted to check off list items on the formulary of Western films. Harris’ tough-guy persona is well served by the role he plays, a youngish Horst Frank is enjoyable as his counterpart, pretty Olga Schoberova was game enough to take about a PG rated bath, and Euro Horror actor Tony Kendall is just swarthy enough to be cast as an Indian Chief without eliciting too many guffaws.
For that matter the Native Americans are regarded with surprising sympathy by the filmmakers, scoring plot points by having the Cavalry and despotic white men who drive the plot as the bad guys, the savage reprisals of the Natives somehow understandable and the dead Collateral Damage on both sides as the heroes are forced to defend themselves. The establishment of the Anti Hero was the great contribution by the Euro’s to the idiom, and indeed contemporary viewers will be surprised at how “modern” the film feels in this unblemished English version presented by the awesome Wu Tang Collection of restored European produced Westerns.
Amazon's surprisingly plain looking "cover art" for the Wu Tang
Collection view on demand via their Prime Video service. You'd
have thought it was made for HBO during the 90s or something,
which I guess was exactly the point, because who'd ever watch
a "Western" made in Germany?
The results may lack the sweeping epic feel of the “Winnetou” fans but was skillfully filmed in widescreen and has a passable twangy electric guitar vibrato music score which will please those who admire such things. Not as plaintively mournful as a Paella-flavored Spaghetti Western score and closer to popular music forms than an operatic Morricone concoction. In fact I’ll say that the film is charming just by having less at stake than a grim, sweaty Italo Western, instead playing a cool, calculated and streamlined game of make-believe which reminds me so much of playing Cowboys & Indians as a kid. That’s why we watch em, period authenticity be damned.
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