Karl Friedrich May was a German author. He is best known for his 19th century novels of travels and adventures, set in the American Old West, the Orient, the Middle East, Latin America, China and Germany. He also wrote poetry, a play, and composed music. He was a proficient player of several musical instruments. Many of his works were adapted for film, theatre, audio dramas and comics. Later in his career, May turned to philosophical and spiritual genres. He is one of the best-selling German writers of all time, with about 200,000,000 copies sold worldwide.
Alexander Crichlow Barker Jr., known as Lex Barker, was an American actor. He was known for playing Tarzan for RKO Pictures between 1949 and 1953, and portraying leading characters from Karl May's novels, notably as Old Shatterhand in a film series by the West German studio Constantin Film. At the height of his fame, he was one of the most popular actors in German-speaking cinema, and received Bambi Award and Bravo Otto nominations for the honor.
Winnetou is a fictional Native American hero of several novels written in German by Karl May (1842–1912), one of the best-selling German writers of all time with about 200 million copies worldwide, including the Winnetou trilogy. The character made his debut in the novel Old Firehand (1875).
Old Shatterhand is a fictional character in Western novels by German writer Karl May (1842–1912). He is the German friend and blood brother of Winnetou, the fictional chief of the Mescalero tribe of the Apache. He is the main character in the Eurowestern by the same name from 1964, starring Lex Barker, as he does in six more films of the Winnetou film series.
Martin Böttcher was a German composer, arranger and conductor.
Pierre-Louis Le Bris, known as Pierre Brice, was a French actor, best known as portraying fictional Apache-chief Winnetou in German films based on Karl May novels.
Karl May film adaptations are films based on stories and characters by German author Karl May (1842–1912). The characters Old Shatterhand, Winnetou, and Kara Ben Nemsi are very famous in Central Europe.
Der Schuh des Manitu is a 2001 German Western parody film. Directed by Michael Herbig, it is a film adaptation of the Winnetou sketches from his ProSieben television show Bullyparade. With earnings of about 65 million Euro and 11.7 million visitors in cinemas, it is one of the most successful German movies after the Second World War.
Gojko Mitić is a German-Serbian actor and director. He gained great popularity in the GDR as the leading actor in historical and fictional Indian personalities in numerous DEFA Indian films. His popularity may be recognizable from the fact that both in the GDR and later in the Federal Republic of Germany attempts were made to attach labels to him: "DEFA bosses" on the one hand, "Winnetou of the East" on the other. However, Gojko Mitić never portrayed the latter role in a film. This Winnetou formulation refers more to the popularity of Gojko Mitić compared to the actor of the role from the West, the Frenchman Pierre Brice.
Artur "Atze" Brauner was a German film producer and entrepreneur of Polish origin. He produced more than 300 films from 1946.
Genghis Khan is a 1965 biographical adventure film directed by Henry Levin and starring Omar Sharif, depicting a fictionalized account of the life and conquests of the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan. Distributed in the United Kingdom and the United States in 1965 by Columbia Pictures, the film also features James Mason, Stephen Boyd, Eli Wallach, Françoise Dorléac and Telly Savalas.
Rialto Film is a German motion-picture production company headquartered in Berlin. It is named after the Rialto in Venice, and used as its production logo an image of a gondola in front of the Rialto Bridge.
Last of the Renegades is a 1964 German-Italian Western film directed by Harald Reinl and starring Pierre Brice, Lex Barker, and Anthony Steel. It is based on a Karl May novel, and was part of a series of adaptations produced by Rialto Film. The film is a sequel to Apache Gold.
Horst Otto Gregor Wendlandt was a German film producer. He produced more than 100 films between 1956 and 2002.
The Desperado Trail is a 1965 West German film directed by Harald Reinl.
' WinneToons ' is a 26-part German cartoon series that is loosely based on characters from the novel Winnetou 1st part by Karl May. The first episode ran on March 30, 2002, on ARD. Then the episodes were repeated on the KiKA. The pilot was released on DVD by Universal. In 2009 there was a cinema adaptation with the title WinneToons - The legend of the treasure in Silbersee.
CCC Film is a German film production company founded in 1946 by Artur Brauner. A Polish Jew who survived the Nazi era by fleeing to the Soviet Union, he lost dozens of relatives to the Nazis. His primary interest was making films about the Nazi era, but after his first such film failed at the box office, throwing him into debt, he began producing entertainment films, the commercial success of which then financed his Holocaust-related films, some of which also became successful. In 2009, Brauner donated 21 Holocaust-related films to Yad Vashem.
Apache Gold, also known as Winnetou the Warrior, is a 1963 Western film directed by Harald Reinl. It is based on the story of Winnetou, a fictional Native-American Apache hero from the Winnetou series of German novels. It was a major commercial success, selling about 77 million tickets at the worldwide box office.
The Treasure of the Silver Lake is a 1962 Western film directed by Harald Reinl, loosely based on German author Karl May's 1891 novel of the same name. It was the first in a highly-successful series of films based on May's works by the West German studios Rialto and Constantin Film, starring American actor Lex Barker as the frontiersman Old Shatterhand and French actor Pierre Brice as the Apache warrior Winnetou.
Bullyparade: The Movie is a 2017 German parody movie. Directed by Michael Herbig, it is a film adaptation of his ProSieben television show Bullyparade and features parodies of popular films and television series such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Barbarella, Sissi, Winnetou, Django Unchained, and The Wolf of Wall Street.
