The Best & The Worst: Treasure of Silver Lake

Quite a few years ago, I was watching the Encore Westerns channel and just happened upon a heretofore unknown film called Treasure of Silver Lake (1962.) I had no idea what I was in for and it was an almost surreal experience (being a German-made western set in America, but filmed in Yugoslavia and Croatia, and with dubbed voices for all.) Once I adjusted my mindset a bit, I found myself becoming highly invested in the adventurous story and loving what I was seeing. I later sought out as many of the films in this ongoing series as I could, and I enjoyed them too, but Silver Lake remains my favorite. Recently I got to see a gorgeously-restored widescreen version of it (now on Blu-Ray) and it was even better than I remembered!

The original German title.

Blue-eyed Frenchman Pierre Brice made a cottage industry of playing the Apache chief Winnetou in many films and even on stage. Lex Barker, a former Tarzan, played Old Shatterhand in several films.

The unusual terrain is highlighted by the gorgeous widescreen cinematography.

The "worst" for me is the sometimes questionable dubbing (and for some reason in these and countless other dubbed European films, there is always loud, boisterous laughter going on for no apparent reason.) Also, this character, played by Eddi Arent, is part of a triad of comic relief roles who - depending on one's tolerance - a viewer may need relief from! This foppish lord stumbles into the story line in search of a rare butterfly!

The other two characters with the potential to grate are the dark-haired one - who speaks only in rhymes - and the bewigged one who was once attacked by an Indian and occasionally takes off his "hair" to itch what's left of his scalp! The rhyming one is by far my least favorite of the three.

More to my taste is the glowing, deliriously handsome Götz George who plays the son of a landowner who has discovered the treasure of the title. If he seems at all familiar, it's because I gave him a brief tribute when he passed away a couple of years ago.

Another example of the striking scenery.

George's vivid red shirt against the painterly (and real!) mountains and sky.

Bronzed Lex Barker starts off the movie with a thick, blond beard, but soon shaves it off.

Directly after shaving it, shots pour in from the window, forcing Barker and George into a clinch. I like to finish up my shaving habits this way, too, but rarely do...

Chief villainy comes in the form of Herbert Lom. Few people could cast as direct or as threatening a gaze as Mr. Lom when he wanted to.

Needless to say, among the best in this film is the searingly beautiful George and his crystalline eyes!

There's a fairly resourceful female (Marianne Hoppe), too, who helps hold off a horde of bad guys at a fort.

There is true grandeur in the sequence, with a huge, two-story house surrounded by tall fencing. The bad guys use large rolling bales to hide behind as they approach with flaming torches.

Forty-three year-old Sexy Lexy, who'd found a new, wildly-successful career in Europe, was still looking good. Sadly, he would be dead of a heart attack just eleven years later. 

I was just gobsmacked that George was doing what appeared to be every single one of his own stunts, from hopping aboard a team of runaway horses pulling a stagecoach to jumping from a moving horse in this scene to drag Lom to the ground!

Their fight scene is quite rugged, but hilariously choreographed with George sending Lom tumbling into the air, Lom burying his face in George's ass and then George catching Lom's head between his legs...! (Is it getting warm in here?)

It ends with George picking Lom up by the balls and then cupping his hand over Lom's crotch before tossing him into the dirt!

The film's heroine is played by pretty Karin Dor, who Hitchcock fans may recall from Topaz (1969.) She's the one who sank to the floor as her voluminous gown spread out below her. Here, her primary act is to be held hostage THREE different times...!

The film would be a pretty serious affair were it not for the continued presence of these three "amusing" tag-alongs. Somehow, during my last viewing, they didn't bother me as much as they once did, but I'm not much on broad comic relief.

The film's participants are subjected to incident after incident, from a tense arrow-filled ambush at a burnt-out Indian village...

...to a knock-down drag-out battle between Barker and one of the tribes hulking warriors (who's given a hysterically sonorous voice in the English dub.)

When we finally do arrive at Silver Lake, it is indeed breathtaking, with teeming waterfalls and, as seen here, a natural rainbow.

Silver Lake.

But once more, Dor has been captured by Lom. George (not shown) is as well.

If you're going to play a guard who is knocked out and has his gun stolen, there are worse ways for it to be done that to have a shirtless Götz George slither across your face as he's reaching for your pistol...!

But the freedom doesn't last long. Can I just - again - point out how George's beauty jumps from the screen?!

I should think fans of bondage would like this segment. Some folks may have focused in on Dor's pouting breasts, but George's beefy pec was all I could take in by this point!

George was either convinced to shave his chest for this part or else wanted to (I presume the former), though in future roles he would show off a hairy physique.

I can't say enough about the gorgeous location filming, the almost endless series of adventures and the finale inside the cave near Silver Lake, which looks as if it could easily have inspired George Lucas when he was making Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989.)

The stars are lovingly photographed throughout. Barker and Brice were extremely popular in these roles, which remain lesser known to many U.S. film fans.

And, I'm sorry, but there are few young male leads as invigorating as George. To see him in the movie, in perpetual motion, literally hurling himself from one spot to the next, doing all sorts of crazy stunts while also looking like this... Sigh. You may see this film for yourself here if you wish. Try to watch it on as large a screen as you can.

Bonus Pic: George and Barker re-teamed (shown here with costar Uschi Glas during leisure time) on Winnetou and the Crossbreed (1966) by which time his chest hair was back in full flower (as were his swim trunks!)

Bonus Pic: By this 1978 TV appearance (on the German series Derrick), hair was "in."

Sweet dreams, folks...

  * * * ALSO - If you recall the very first installment of The Best & The Worst, there was a question regarding the exposure of Jeff Bridges in the 1979 film Winter Kills. I have updated the post with some revealing information at the bottom of the page.  * * * Till next time!

Oh Boy, George!

During all our recent computer & Internet crises, we lost an actor who is quite unknown to the general public (in the U.S., at least), but who made a singular impression on me when I laid eyes on him for the first time. I wasn't able to pay him his due on the day he passed, but wanted to do a little something now.  The man in question is Götz George.

WHO?!?!  Well, Götz George was a German actor born on July 23rd, 1938 in Berlin. His parents were both actors, though his father Heinrich George was controversial in that he had initially been an active Communist, then - branded a non-desirable - switched to the Nazi party, working in their propaganda films. Ironically, he died in a Soviet concentration camp for his Nazi collaborations after he heretofore been a Communist for most of his life! The man had a burly, authoritative, almost Orson Welles-ish quality. Götz is shown below next to a sculpture of his father Heinrich.

His mother was the imposing Berta Drews, an acclaimed stage actress who essayed many character roles in films as well, even appearing in the 1979 international hit, The Tin Drum. She lived to be eighty-five, passing away in 1987

George embarked on a stage career at the early age of twelve and continued to act in plays during schooling at Berlin's University of Fine Arts. Landing his first film role in 1953 at only age fifteen, he was winning acclaim (and awards) by 1959.

It was in 1962 that he made the primary movie of that his I've ever seen, Treasure of Silver Lake (or, as its original title goes, Der Schatz im Silbersee.)

This was but one of many wildly-popular German-made westerns based upon books written in the 1890s by Karl May. May was an avid enthusiast of the wild west of the United States, despite never having been there. (In 1908, he and his wife spent six weeks in the northeast part of the U.S., but he never ventured to the area in which so many of his stories were set.) Elaborately filmed (those are real men on real horses galloping to a real fort in the middle picture!), they often featured hordes of extras and spectacular action sequences.

Most of these westerns featured some truly terrible voice-dubbing, but if one could get past that, they also featured entertainingly adventuresome stories and appearances by familiar performers such as Elke Sommer, Stewart Granger, Rod Cameron, Terrence Hill and, in the case of Silver Lake, Lex Barker, Herbert Lom and Karin Dor. Most of all, however, they typically featured eye-popping scenery with unique rock formations, rugged terrain and stunning waterfalls. Once seen, these colorful and lustrous settings aren't easy to forget.

Also hard to forget was the enthusiastic and athletic George, careening around the movie with aplomb. He did all his own stunts, some of which were entertaining to behold. With his fit, but stocky, frame, a husky chest, a sly grin and two piercing blue eyes, he really did make an impression.

At one point he takes a shirtless swim in Treasure Lake and let's just say that there was more than one type of treasure to be found in it on that day! He was also captured and held captive along with Ms. Dor for those into the bondage thing.  LOL  He exuded such charm throughout the entire thing that he has stayed in my mind for years after (the film is difficult to find here, though every once in a while it will pop up!)

George went on to do two more Karl May-derived westerns, Amongst Vultures (aka, Frontier Hellcat, 1964) and Winnetou and the Crossbreed (aka Half-Breed, 1966.) He also proceeded to a long, rewarding and heavily-awarded career in German movies and television.

Check out his trim waist, tight jeans and he-man looks in 1987's The Crack Connection (aka, Zabou.) The back of this video box hilariously states, "First there was 'Stallone' and then 'Schwarzenegger.' Now there is the new screen sensation 'Schimanski.'" Well.... I'm not sure about that! Maybe more of a Tom Selleck or Lee Horsley?

Also of interest is The Trio (1998), a comedy in which George portrays a gay thief whose lover and whose daughter (from a long-ago straight fling) form a trio of larcenous schemers. When the lover is injured in an accident, George and his daughter take on a new partner in crime, yet find themselves both attracted to the newcomer!

Though his hair and beard are dyed within an inch of their lives for the role, he still has those luminous blue eyes, a devilishly handsome smile and an enviable physique (at age sixty!) You can view a trailer of the quirky, at times heartwarming, film here. This was quite a year for him in that he also went full frontally nude in erotic crime drama Solo for Clarinet.

Götz George was still taking home awards for his acting as recently as 2013 and 2014, those blue eyes still sparkling. Sadly, he died of a short illness on June 19th, 2016 at age seventy-seven. His first wife of ten years (1966-1976) was an actress named Loni von Friedl and they had a daughter together. A second wife wed him in 2014, but became his widow last month.

I don't know how many of my readers will ever see The Treasure of the Silver Lake or any other movie of George's, but I wanted to give him a little shout-out because I enjoyed him and hope to see more of his output in the future. Clearly, based upon the avalanche of acclaim that he received in his homeland, there is plenty of product worth watching when the time comes.