The title of this German film translates as 'The Emperor of California', so -- when I first heard of this movie -- I thought it would be a dramatisation of the bizarre true story of Joshua Norton, an eccentric beggar in 19th-century San Francisco who declared himself Emperor of the United States. This movie turns out to be inspired by the life of a 19th-century historic figure, right enough, but it isn't Joshua Norton: it's John Sutter (or Johann Suter), the immigrant on whose land was discovered (in 1848) the gold ore that led to the California Gold Rush.
I'm extremely impressed with this film. It was clearly made on a large budget, and several exterior sequences were actually filmed in California. Most of the cast give excellent, well-directed performances.
I'm slightly familiar with the life story of the real John Sutter. This German movie varies somewhat from the facts (as does Hollywood, constantly), but much of the rewriting here actually serves to make Sutter's life story *more* plausible, rather than less. It's not widely known that the real John Sutter's emigration to California was by an extremely circuitous path that took him through Hawaii and Alaska! But that trivium is ultimately irrelevant to the part of his story that really matters (the gold strike, and its aftermath), so Sutter's peregrinations are wisely left out here.
'The Kaiser of California' won Italy's Mussolini Cup as best foreign (non-Italian) film of the year. This means both good news and bad news. In order to win the Mussolini Cup, a film had to be genuinely well-made, featuring excellent photography, intelligent scripting, superlative performances. This movie has those assets in abundance. The bad news is that -- as you might guess from its patron's name -- the Mussolini Cup was ideologically motivated. To be worthy of that award, a film had to advance Fascist agenda. Which this movie, indeed, does. At every point where I spotted a deviation from historical truth in this movie, the deviation was always to the benefit of totalitarian (and anti-American) politics.
To begin with, the real John Sutter (or Johann Suter) was Swiss. When he founded a homestead in Spanish California, he cried it Nueva Helvetia: New Switzerland. In this movie, Johann Suter (not John Sutter) retains his German birthname throughout his life, and he identifies himself as German (not Swiss) to his dying day. In the time of the Anschluss, I can understand why Nazi filmmakers would want to blur the distinctions between Germans, Austrians and Swiss.
The basic nugget of historic truth is retained: when gold is discovered on Suter's land, his homestead is ruined by prospectors. Others make fortunes in the goldfields while Suter ends his days in poverty. The last reel of this film shows Suter shrieking on the steps of a U.S. courthouse, cursing the American politicians who have cheated him. The truth is more complicated. In real life, the U.S. Congress voted to compensate John Sutter very generously for the loss of his land ... but he died before the compensation could commence. Also, John Sutter's real-life son August amassed a fortune in the boom economy triggered by the Gold Rush. (The son selfishly refused to share the wealth with his father.) In this film, Johann Suter has a fictional son Rudolph who bears almost no resemblance to the real August Sutter. For that matter, the name of Suter's wife has been arbitrarily changed from Nanette (a Swiss name) to the more German-sounding Anna.
The injustices heaped upon Suter throughout this movie are presented as semi-official actions of the United States government, rather than what they actually were: depredations caused by greedy individuals. This movie stands as solid evidence that, as far back as 1936, the German film ministry were trying to stir up German-language audiences against the United States. 'The Kaiser of California' is anti-U.S. pro-Nazi propaganda, but it manages to be fairly subtle in its intentions: there is, of course, no explicit mention of Nazism nor Hitler. Since this movie achieves its intentions very proficiently, I'll rate it 7 out of 10, with a footnote warning viewers to proceed with caution.
P.S.: In real life, but not in this movie, some of the prospectors in the California Gold Rush were from Australia. One of them noticed that the land near Sutter's Mill bore a strong resemblance to the land near his own homestead in Kalgoorlie, Australia: after panning out his claim in California, this man went back home to Kalgoorlie and struck gold. Few Americans know that there was a gold rush in Australia immediately after the one in California. I hope that somebody will eventually make a film about the Kalgoorlie Gold Rush; it's a fascinating story.
I'm extremely impressed with this film. It was clearly made on a large budget, and several exterior sequences were actually filmed in California. Most of the cast give excellent, well-directed performances.
I'm slightly familiar with the life story of the real John Sutter. This German movie varies somewhat from the facts (as does Hollywood, constantly), but much of the rewriting here actually serves to make Sutter's life story *more* plausible, rather than less. It's not widely known that the real John Sutter's emigration to California was by an extremely circuitous path that took him through Hawaii and Alaska! But that trivium is ultimately irrelevant to the part of his story that really matters (the gold strike, and its aftermath), so Sutter's peregrinations are wisely left out here.
'The Kaiser of California' won Italy's Mussolini Cup as best foreign (non-Italian) film of the year. This means both good news and bad news. In order to win the Mussolini Cup, a film had to be genuinely well-made, featuring excellent photography, intelligent scripting, superlative performances. This movie has those assets in abundance. The bad news is that -- as you might guess from its patron's name -- the Mussolini Cup was ideologically motivated. To be worthy of that award, a film had to advance Fascist agenda. Which this movie, indeed, does. At every point where I spotted a deviation from historical truth in this movie, the deviation was always to the benefit of totalitarian (and anti-American) politics.
To begin with, the real John Sutter (or Johann Suter) was Swiss. When he founded a homestead in Spanish California, he cried it Nueva Helvetia: New Switzerland. In this movie, Johann Suter (not John Sutter) retains his German birthname throughout his life, and he identifies himself as German (not Swiss) to his dying day. In the time of the Anschluss, I can understand why Nazi filmmakers would want to blur the distinctions between Germans, Austrians and Swiss.
The basic nugget of historic truth is retained: when gold is discovered on Suter's land, his homestead is ruined by prospectors. Others make fortunes in the goldfields while Suter ends his days in poverty. The last reel of this film shows Suter shrieking on the steps of a U.S. courthouse, cursing the American politicians who have cheated him. The truth is more complicated. In real life, the U.S. Congress voted to compensate John Sutter very generously for the loss of his land ... but he died before the compensation could commence. Also, John Sutter's real-life son August amassed a fortune in the boom economy triggered by the Gold Rush. (The son selfishly refused to share the wealth with his father.) In this film, Johann Suter has a fictional son Rudolph who bears almost no resemblance to the real August Sutter. For that matter, the name of Suter's wife has been arbitrarily changed from Nanette (a Swiss name) to the more German-sounding Anna.
The injustices heaped upon Suter throughout this movie are presented as semi-official actions of the United States government, rather than what they actually were: depredations caused by greedy individuals. This movie stands as solid evidence that, as far back as 1936, the German film ministry were trying to stir up German-language audiences against the United States. 'The Kaiser of California' is anti-U.S. pro-Nazi propaganda, but it manages to be fairly subtle in its intentions: there is, of course, no explicit mention of Nazism nor Hitler. Since this movie achieves its intentions very proficiently, I'll rate it 7 out of 10, with a footnote warning viewers to proceed with caution.
P.S.: In real life, but not in this movie, some of the prospectors in the California Gold Rush were from Australia. One of them noticed that the land near Sutter's Mill bore a strong resemblance to the land near his own homestead in Kalgoorlie, Australia: after panning out his claim in California, this man went back home to Kalgoorlie and struck gold. Few Americans know that there was a gold rush in Australia immediately after the one in California. I hope that somebody will eventually make a film about the Kalgoorlie Gold Rush; it's a fascinating story.