A lot of time passed before the adventurous books by Karl May became veritable hits. A new illustrated book shows: It took several flops for Winnetou & Co. to finally become the legends they are today.
Wiener Zeitung
November 15, 2020
At the beginning of Karl May's conquest of the big screen there was a lot of passion - and a big flop. When the ardent May admirer Marie Louise Droop (1890-1959) took heart at the age of 13 and started writing letters to her favorite author, she had no idea that she would one day be the first to make a film version of one May-Romans would produce. Droop even met the adventure writer personally before he died in 1912. During his lifetime nothing is known that resourceful producers tried to get the film rights to May's oeuvre, because colleagues like Jack London had more charisma (he even worked in the film adaptation of his book "The Sea Wolf" in 1913). But Marie Louise Droop recognized the broad impact of the relatively new medium and was able to convince May's widow Klara to issue the rights for three films. For the implementation, Droop founded the Ustad film company in Berlin; the Persian word Ustad stands for an honorary title (such as "Maestro"), but also denotes a figure from Karl May's "In the Reiche of the Silver Lion". The production company was to devote itself entirely to the visual implementation of May's work, and the first three productions were also finished within a year: "On the Ruins of Paradise", "The Caravan of Death" and "The Devil Worshipers" (which featured an early screen appearance by the later Dracula actor Bela Lugosi) were all filmed in 1920, at a time when there were 3000 cinemas and 350 million paying viewers across Germany. So there is huge potential. For the implementation, Droop founded the Ustad film company in Berlin; the Persian word Ustad stands for an honorary title (such as "Maestro"), but also denotes a figure from Karl May's "In the Reiche of the Silver Lion". The production company was to devote itself entirely to the visual implementation of May's work, and the first three productions were also finished within a year: "On the Ruins of Paradise", "The Caravan of Death" and "The Devil Worshipers" (which featured an early screen appearance by the later Dracula actor Bela Lugosi) were all filmed in 1920, at a time when there were 3,000 cinemas and 350 million paying viewers across Germany. So there is huge potential. For the implementation, Droop founded the Ustad film company in Berlin; the Persian word Ustad stands for an honorary title (such as "Maestro"), but also denotes a figure from Karl May's "In the Reiche of the Silver Lion". The production company was to devote itself entirely to the visual implementation of May's work, and the first three productions were also finished within a year: "On the Ruins of Paradise", "The Caravan of Death" and "The Devil Worshipers" (which featured an early screen appearance by the later Dracula actor Bela Lugosi) were all filmed in 1920, at a time when there were 3000 cinemas and 350 million paying viewers across Germany. So there is huge potential. the Persian word Ustad stands for an honorary title (such as "Maestro"), but also denotes a figure from Karl May's "In the Reiche of the Silver Lion". The production company was to devote itself entirely to the visual implementation of May's work, and the first three productions were also finished within a year: "On the Ruins of Paradise", "The Caravan of Death" and "The Devil Worshipers" (which featured an early screen appearance by the later Dracula actor Bela Lugosi) were all filmed in 1920, at a time when there were 3000 cinemas and 350 million paying viewers across Germany. So there is huge potential. the Persian word Ustad stands for an honorary title (such as "Maestro"), but also denotes a figure from Karl May's "In the Reiche of the Silver Lion". The production company was to devote itself entirely to the visual implementation of May's work, and the first three productions were also finished within a year: "On the Ruins of Paradise", "The Caravan of Death" and "The Devil Worshipers" (which featured an early screen appearance by the later Dracula actor Bela Lugosi) were all filmed in 1920, at a time when there were 3,000 cinemas and 350 million paying viewers across Germany. So there is huge potential. The production company was to devote itself entirely to the visual implementation of May's work, and the first three productions were also finished within a year: "On the Ruins of Paradise", "The Caravan of Death" and "The Devil Worshipers" (which featured an early screen appearance by the later Dracula actor Bela Lugosi) were all filmed in 1920, at a time when there were 3,000 cinemas and 350 million paying viewers across Germany. So there is huge potential. The production company was to devote itself entirely to the visual implementation of May's work, and the first three productions were also finished within a year: "On the Ruins of Paradise", "The Caravan of Death" and "The Devil Worshipers" (which featured an early screen appearance by the later Dracula actor Bela Lugosi) were all filmed in 1920, at a time when there were 3000 cinemas and 350 million paying viewers across Germany. So there is huge potential. when there were 3000 cinemas and 350 million paying viewers across Germany. So there is huge potential. when there were 3,000 cinemas and 350 million paying viewers across Germany. So there is huge potential.
Lost Silent Films
But the audience refused to approve the films. The silent films, which were elaborately made in studios in Berlin and during external shoots in Saxon Switzerland, could not convince dramaturgically, at least that was what the film critics at the time said. The films obviously could not reflect Karl May's bright spirit, his passion for adventure, exoticism and tension. However, this cannot be verified: all three films are now considered lost and there are no copies of them.
Nevertheless, they are the reason for the new illustrated book "100 Years of Karl May in the Cinema" published by Karl May Verlag, a lovingly compiled homage to the films that made Karl May a street sweeper. Author Stefan von der Heiden has gathered photos and anecdotes on around 200 pages that should make the hearts of May fans beat faster, but which can also serve as an introduction to May's cinematic work.
The advertising of the first May films with the words that they had "a sensational effect" on the audience went wrong: the flop of the May trilogy of 1920 led directly to the bankruptcy of Ustad-Film; The idea of taking people to exotic, distant places shortly after the First World War was too ambitious. For more than 15 years no one dared read Karl May's books, even though almost everyone (in the German-speaking world) knew them. Even if May's work has been translated into more than 40 languages, he has not made it into a world author - he has remained a very German phenomenon to this day.
In 1935 the Berlin-based Lothar-Stark-Film dared to adapt "Through the Desert" - and went a different way than the silent films: To show real exoticism, the film team traveled to Egypt for the outdoor shoots - but the contemporary "film review" The Nazi press was merciless: Too lengthy, too little tension - and at the end a half-Jewish director, which reliably maneuvered the company under the Nazi regime.
[To be continued Friday November 27, 2020]
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