I turned the television on this afternoon while I was eating lunch. Its a rainy cloudy sort of Saturday where I would likely find myself sitting on my parents couch watching a John Wayne film with my dad if I was in Portland.
I was thinking about just how nice it would be if I happened to find a western on TV today, even if it was dubbed in German. Much to my delight the TV was already on the perfect station. It was totally a western, 1960's color video quality and all!
However, within the first few seconds I knew that this was no John Wayne movie.
It was Winnetou!
Isa had told me about Winnetuo. She grew up watching Winnetou thinking it was an American western movie, and it certainly compares to the ones I grew up watching, but I had never heard of it. Turns out Winnetou was filmed in the mountains of Chek for German speaking audiences. Isa loves it and was shocked to realize I had never heard of it. Almost as much as I love the sound of music and was shocked to learn she had never seen it either. We are planning an international 1960's korny movie exchange night.
So, how did I know this movies was not an American original within seconds of recognizing its American Western genre. The second camera shot was of the American flag with all 50 stars. Never realized it before but that’s one historical point that westerns always capture, the old American flags. As soon as I saw the modern flag I knew something was amis.
The movie was over 3 minutes later. And I could hear the echo of my mother clapping her hands and saying to nobody really, but absolutely to me and my dad lounging on the couch, "Well, Thats Over, Lets clean the house!" ***
Its a good Saturday.
***to be shortly followed an hour later by "Jaime, Your definition of clean and my definition of clean are not the same thing!" Whilst she points to the kleenex clutter I left hiding in a corner of the living room. (I can't wait to use that line on my kids!)
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3 comments:
SIGH!
Love,
Dad
Jamie. I am glad you got to meet Winnetou. He and Old Shatterhand (Lex Barker) were my childhood heros. I have my mom bring over some of the Winnetou movies for my future offspring. Big part of my childhood. You should check out a movie call "Schuh des Manitu" now that you know about Winnetou. The flag thing is hillarious. There were lots of other Westerns filmt by East Germany or West Germany and they showed the current Dollar as the currency. Hillarious these little glitches. But we jsut didn't know better I guess :)
Well, I have a good idea of what you are talking about. My dad is still trying to get us to read the books about Winnetou, which were written by Karl May, who never actually visited the parts of the US that he described. Nevertheless, the three books of Winnetou are very popular in Germany.
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