cynthiahost Review of Der Kaiser von Kalifornien

Der Kaiser von Kalifornien (1936)

the only German western made under the third Reich

[9/10 · 13 August 2010]

This would be the light side of the Nazi controlled motion picture business. The light side either didn't have the n heavy propaganda at all or it had the Nazi morality code which was almost equivalent the Hayes code.Luis Trenk portrays Johanne Sutters.He's being attacked by an official for printing something that's offensive. A magic spirit show up and suggest he moves to California, He flees Germany leaving his family behind. Once he's in California he,with two other partners, becomes a fur trader. But some thieves steal their horses and their money. The three end up hiking. They end up in the desert thirsty. Johanne is rescued by pioneers. He ends up discovering California and gets land turns it into a big farm. He creates a mill also. Well all is successful until gold fever hits that country and his fellow workers don't want to work for him anymore.Right about this time he had already send for his wife and two sons. They are coming out at the time when he's in trouble. His children ends up being killed by the greed of gold lust. He fights to make the place he had discovered to stop focusing on gold and focus on other things. He ends up broke, Now there was subtle propaganda here.When he greets his two sons after so many years of absence, do they act emotional and all hug each other?Nope a cold pat on the back.Men don't hug. There are friendly Indians he meets.Goebels isn't criticizing the intolerance of white men against Indians. He's exploiting it to condemn Americans.The Americans are portrayed as greedy gold rushers . In the saloon there's a black saloon girl. This is racism. It's to portray the white American men as lusting after black women to criticize their alleged tolerance.Inspite of it being slightly slow it was pretty good.