The Desperado Trail

Rollins and his men want land. Their method is plain: they will set the settlers and the native people against each other, fighting will break out, and when the land empties they will take it. Old Shatterhand sees what is happening. So does Winnetou. The two have worked together for years and this time the scheme is large. The tribes are arming and word is spreading. Winnetou tries to stop his own people and Shatterhand to calm the settlers. But there is a gunman between them and a shot will be fired. This is the last film of the trilogy and Winnetou dies in it. Harald Reinl directs. Lex Barker plays Old Shatterhand and Pierre Brice plays Winnetou; Sophie Hardy and Rik Battaglia are in the cast. It is a German, Italian and Yugoslav co-production. The source is Karl May's novels; the author wrote them without ever seeing America and they were read in Germany for generations. It was shot in Yugoslavia and the mountains stand in for the American west. The final scene is among those a generation in Germany remembers; Winnetou's death drew a large reaction in cinemas. Pierre Brice became identified with the part and played the same character for years. The matter it treats is incitement; the cause of the fighting is not race but land, and the film says so plainly. The narrative shows the native people favourably but still looks at them from outside. Its limit is structure; the narrative is conventional, the action simple, and the characters one dimensional. Who it is for: viewers who like European westerns and Karl May adaptations. Who it is not for: it is old, conventional, and the ending sad.