The Gazette – Cedar Rapids, Iowa
By Joseph Fleming
March 22, 1966
BERLIN (UPI) – The Reds have adopted the Redskins in an
effort to whip up anti-American sentiment in East Germany.
The communists
haven’t asked permission of the American Indians whom they are portraying in a
film names “Sons of the Golden Bear.”
The
Redskins – painted up East Germans – appear in the first Indian movie ever made
by the state-run Defa Film Company.
The film is
playing topacked houses in the Soviet zone, not because it is anti-American but
because it has action, a quality seldom seen in East German propaganda films.
On a wide
screen there are blue skies, broad prairies, tomahawks, bows and arrows.
Black and White
The film is
photographed in color, but the story is told only in terms of black and white.
The action
pits courageous, peace-living, clean-living Dakota Indians against
blood-thirsty savages – American soldiers and settlers who are depicted as
cold-blooded murderers.
The Americans,
by use of superior arms and deceit, force a group of Dakota Indians from their
rich hunting grounds to a stone desert reservation incapable of sustaining
life.
Murder
First they
murder the Indian chief. Then the only obstacle is his son, Tokei-Ihto, played
by Yugoslav Actor Gojko Mitic.
The army
invites the son into the fort to smoke the pipe of peace, but once inside he is
seized and imprisoned.
East German
film critics called the film exciting but stopped short of calling it good.
The critic of
the Volksarmee, weekly newspaper of the armed forces, recommended it to
servicemen for the stand it takes against “exploitation and oppression”.
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