Rent Eastern Trails: The Western at DEFA (1975)
3.2 of 5 from 45 ratings
6h 6min
- General info
- Available formats
- 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 Mitic, whose appearances in a long line of action-packed Westerns for DEFA made him one of the most famous faces in Europe. Mitic 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 Romer). 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. - Actors:
- Gojko Mitic, Rolf Römer, Helmut Schreiber, Jürgen Frohriep, Lilo Grahn, Andrea Drahota, Johannes Knittel, Adolf Peter Hoffmann, Heinz Klevenow Jr., Milan Jablonský, Horst Preusker, Rudolf Ulrich, Karl Zugowski, Gisela Büttner, Günter Dornag, Hermann Gall, Leopoldine Kuhring, Hans-Peter Pieper, Günter Schaumburg, Hans-Joachim Stelzer
- Directors:
- Richard Groschopp, Konrad Petzold, Gottfried Kolditz, Werner W. Wallroth
- Writers:
- James Fenimore Cooper, Wolfgang Ebeling, Richard Groschopp, Egon Günther, Günter Karl, Rolf Römer, Gottfried Kolditz, Gojko Mitić, Hans-Joachim Wallstein, Dean Reed
- Aka:
- Chingachgook the Great Serpent / Fatal Error / Apaches / Blood Brothers.
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Classics, Drama, Romance
- Countries:
- Germany
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 21/09/2026
- Run Time:
- 366 minutes
- Languages:
- German
- Subtitles:
- English
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Various
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- New audio commentary on Apaches film historian Michael Brooke
- Singing Cowboy - new interview on Dean Reed and Blood Brothers with East German cinema expert Sean Allan, co-editor of Re-Imagining DEFA
- Old West, New Perspective - new video essay on depictions of American history in DEFA's Indianer filme by Western scholar Jenny Barrett, author of Shooting the Civil War
- Archival musical performance by Dean Reed
- Disc 1:
- This disc includes the following Films:
- Chingachgook the Great Serpent
- Fatal Error
- Special Features - Disc 2:
- This disc includes the following Films:
- Apaches
- Blood Brothers
- Special Features
