Winnetou I

It has little in common with the novel, as with other May adaptations, but it’s quite enjoyable otherwise. The ravages of time have eroded the original impression over the years, but nostalgia is a bitch and I won't go below four stars. (01.06.2002)

I simply cannot add the fifth star. And it is probably because I didn’t see the film for the first time as I child and neither did I stand in queues in the summer theater, unlike many older users here. In fact, I'll probably be one of the few who visited Plitvice lakes before seeing the first installment of Winnetou. But, as years go by, I’m getting a taste for it more and more and I have to say that I completely understand why Winnetou is such a legend for many. (05.07.2019)

Winnetou, Old Shatterhand, Sam Hawkins, Karl May... Die Helden meiner Kindheit. Und alle Charaktere in dem Buch hatten die Gesichter ihrer Filmpendants, zumindest in meinem Kopf konnten die "Winnetou-Filme" selbst die hervorragenden Illustrationen von Zdeněk Burian übertreffen. Aus der Sicht eines pingeligen Analytikers ist es natürlich eine sehr naive und etwas ungeschickte Nachahmung eines Westerns, aber was soll's, Nostalgie ist eine mächtige Zauberin und ich lasse bis heute nichts auf diese Perle einer Koproduktion kommen. Verglichen mit dem Buch ist es etwas weniger lyrisch, aber es fängt immer noch den Geist des Buches ein, und ich werde immer wieder gerne darauf zurückkommen, auch wenn ich längst aus meinen Jungenschuhen herausgewachsen bin und an meinem silbernen Gewehr (aus hochwertigem Styropor) der Zahn der Zeit genagt hat... (27.06.2004)

Unforgettable movie and for me, forever a cult in the truest sense of the word. I can recite lines learned at the age of six, and the older I get, the more the final battle at Nugget-tsilu grips me. Recently, I was pondering which movie I've seen the most, and after careful consideration, I had to admit that it wasn't actually The Fellowship of the Ring in the end. (13.11.2005)

The well-known Czech traveler and cactus collector, Alberto Frič, once had a conversation with students from a primary school in Prague. While describing his experiences living among Native Americans, he received several questions from the audience that he did not understand and found absurd. He tried to correct the distorted ideas that the schoolchildren had about the life of Native American tribes, but he encountered a wall of contempt. He was exposed as a bold fraud because each of these children already had a clear idea about Native Americans from the novels of Karl May. Although May had never been to America, or the Balkans and Asia where he placed his adventure novels (actually, that's not entirely true; in his old age, as a result of criticism that he wrote everything without knowledge of reality and without sticking his nose out of Germany, he traveled to the places where his literary heroes had been), he managed to fulfill the imagination not only of the schoolchildren but also of what a romantic adventurer and entertaining story should be. It's not so much that May's stories have practically nothing to do with the reality of Native American communities and the Wild West, but rather that, from my present perspective, they are so naive that they even cross the boundaries of self-parody. I read Vinnetou's stories, as well as the book series "The Shadow of the Padishah," between the ages of nine and twelve, and by the age of thirteen, I found them somewhat amusing and moved on to other works. Vinnetou was simply part of a certain age group, although it is appropriate to speak in the past tense here as well because, for my children's generation, these heroes are "totally out." I am surprised, however, by the exceptionally high rating the film has earned, which is the result of an exceptionally strong dose of nostalgia in this case. This phenomenon is typical not only for the May novels of the 1960s. Adults simply remember how amazingly these stories influenced them in their childhood, although I strongly doubt that they would be willing to re-read the Vinnetou stories today. I remember how, at around fifteen years old, I watched The Yellow One and swore it would be the last time I watched May's films. From the Vinnetou series, only the musical motif, the beauty of the Croatian limestone mountains, and childhood memories remain. Overall impression: 40%. (23.11.2013)

This is a classic that I simply love. The way Vinnetou and Old Shatterhand come together is simply iconic and it's a beautiful example of true friendship. Moreover, it contains a lot of emotions that you experience deeply as a little boy. True, as an adult, not so much, but that's just because you know it so well. This is simply a beautiful adventurous classic. (28.01.2015)