BUFFALO BILL’S WILD WEST (IN GERMANY)

1907, Germany [?]

Aka… Buffalo Bill's Wild West (1907), ‘Buffalo Bill's Wild West in Germany' [?] (Ger)

T:  17.5/15mt, 2 acts, (Ger)

Dist: Heinrich Ernemann Film [Johann Heinrich Ernemann] (03/07, Ger) 

C: Buffalo Bill Cody [William Frederick Cody] and the Congress of Rough Riders of the World

     Comm: [Filmed in Germany [?]] BUFFALO BILL’S WILD WEST was made during the same European tour as BUFFALO BILL (HIMSELF) (12/13, UK), THE ADVENTURES OF BUFFALO BILL (1909), BUFFALO BILL ARRIVES IN ROME (1906), BUFFALO BILL’S SHOW IN BRESCIA (1906).

     Most likely ‘newsreel’ footage was made at one of the stops and exhibited in Germany. Cody and company had toured Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy & Spain and were filmed multiple times.

     Buffalo Bill and his Congress of Rough Riders of the World had toured Germany in 1890-91. They returned in 1906 and performed at Zittau (08/15), Bautzen (08/16), Dresden (08/17-18), Chemnitz (08/21-22), Zwickau (08/23), Plauen (08/24), Gera (08/25), Weimar (08/26), Eisenach (08/27), Fulda (08/28), Hanau (08/29), Worms (08/30), Saarbrücken (08/31), Metz (09/01-02), Trier (09/04), Coblenz (09/05), Bonn (09/06), Düren (09/07), Mönchengladbach (09/08-09), and nearby Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (09/03).  

     Unless he was in prison it is thought that Karl May (Winnetou author) visited the Buffalo Bill's Wild West show in one of its visits to the Fatherland. 

     Promoter Heinrich Ernemann (28 May 1850, Gernrode, Eichsfeld – 16 May 1928, Hartha), was the son of Catharina Ernemann & Joseph Brodmann, was a German inventor, entrepreneur and industrialist who contributed innovations in photography and cinema equipment and was founder of Ernemann-Werke AG.  In 1907 Mr. Eichsfeld showed BUFFALO BILL’S WILD WEST to German audiences. A few years later the Buffalo Bill & Pawnee Bill Film co. of NY took out ads in multiple Kinematograph magazine issues starting with n201 (11/02/10), announcing that he had for sale authorized footage of this show for sale, and that these could be rented to theatres.  He also warned that they shouldn’t be fooled by imitators that were showing inferior films of the show.

 

Submitted by Michael Ferguson