After Der Schatz im Silbersee and Winnetou, 1. Teil, producer Horst Wendlandt, who also played a major part in concocting the Edgar Wallace series, went immediately to work on the Winnetou sequel. Last Of The Renegades (Winnetou, 2. Teil in German), based on the popular Karl May novel, was a huge box office success as well and marks the high point of the Winnetou craze in postwar Germany.
I didn't enjoy a single second of it.
I don't know if it's the mild racism, the labored dialogue, the by-the-numbers love story, Eddi Arendt's tired slapstick routine, or that horrible bear dress in the film's first scene, but it was a real struggle to get through Renegade. When the film was released, the Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz wrote that Klaus Kinski is the only artful performer in the film, and that is certainly true. Pierre Brice as Winnetou and Lex Barker as Old Shatterhand might have attained cult status in Germany due to their dignified performances in the Winnetou films, but Kinski is the only one who brings life and excitement to his acting. All the other members of the ensemble resort to cliches or are just bland.
The script takes some episodes of Karl May's Winnetou novels but is essentially designed to allow for as much location shooting and action set pieces as possible. In one memorable sequence, an oil field is set on fire during the night which allows for some neat visuals. And of course the Yugoslavian scenery is breathtaking. The producers knew that people would flock to theaters to see the newest Winnetou and banked on the fact that the audience would already know the characters and their world. Thusly, showmanship was the only thing they concerned themselves with and dispensed with character work and interesting plot development entirely. That's why the film opens on a bear attacking a helpless young woman, and a drinking game could be played every time senseless gun fire erupts.
The story is not really worth mentioning, suffice it to say that it centers on Winnetou's love to a girl from another tribe who has to be married off to a white officer and that the delicate peace brokered between the Indian tribes and the white settlers is threatened by a bunch of wild criminals. Guess what side Kinski's character belonged to?
As much as I enjoyed the scenes involving Kinski (it is a oddly intense performance from the young actor who, at that time, was mainly known from his work in theater and his appearances in the Edgar Wallace films) Last Of The Renegades is still not worth plowing through. Der Schatz im Silbersee, employing much of the same tropes, is a vastly superior entertainment if you're a Karl May aficionado or simply looking for some fun, light adventure fare.
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