The pyramid of the sun god
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The pyramid of the sun god |
| Original title | The pyramid of the sun god / Les mercenaires do Rio Grande / I violenti di Rio Bravo |
 | |
| Country of production | Germany , France , Italy |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1965 |
| length | 98 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Robert Siodmak |
| script |
Georg Marischka Ladislas Fodor Robert A. Stemmle , Paul Jarrico; Robert Siodmak |
| production |
CCC-Film , Berlin Artur Brauner Franco London Films, Paris Serena Film, Rome in collaboration with Ratko Drasević for Avala Film, Belgrade |
| music | Erwin Halletz |
| camera | Siegfried Hold |
| cut | Walter Wischniewsky |
| occupation | |
| |
The pyramid of the sun god is a movie based on the novel Waldröschen by Karl May ( Karl May film ). The world premiere took place on April 17, 1965.
The film is the sequel to The Aztec Treasure . The film ran without a festive premiere in German cinemas.
action
The Aztec Flathouani and his ward, the Aztec Princess Karja, find the unconscious doctor Dr. Sternau in front of the entrance to their treasure cave. Sternau fell down a mountain slope while fighting the bandit Verdoja. Karja takes care of Sternau's wounds. In clear moments he can see the Aztec treasure in the cave. Sternau's friends Andreas Hasenpfeffer, Lieutenant Potoca and Frank Wilson are looking for him and are able to free him from the hands of the Indians. They take him to the Hacienda del Erina .
Meanwhile, Captain Verdoja offers Marshal Bazaine his help in the fight against the Mexican rebels. In the anteroom of the marshal, Verdoja meets the scheming Josefa, who is still trying to get her lover, Count Rodriganda, married to the Indian Karja in order to get hold of the Aztec treasure. This marriage can be prevented by Frank Wilson and Andreas Hasenpfeffer, but the love-hyping Count succeeds in coaxing Karja of the location of the treasure.
Verdoja tries to raid the hacienda. However, his people are routed and he is taken prisoner. With the help of Josefa he manages to escape. Shortly afterwards, the hacienda is attacked again. This time Hasenpfeffer, Wilson and also Dr. Sternau caught and dragged into the pyramid of the sun god. Here, torture is used to wrest the secret of the Aztec treasure away from them, although Count Rodriganda has long been on the trail. Wilson manages to push Verdoja into a fire in a scuffle. This hurts his eyes. Forced to treat Dr. Sternau the injured and can take an opportunity to escape. When he returned from the hacienda with helpers, he managed to free the prisoners.
Captain Verdoja has now got rid of the dangerous Josefa and is riding with his troops to the cave of the Aztec treasure, where Count Rodriganda has meanwhile been killed by Flathouani. When the bandits penetrate the cave, they fall into the gold rush. Flathouani operates a secret mechanism through which lava flows into the cave and buries bandits and gold.
background
The shooting of The Treasure of the Aztecs and The Pyramid of the Sun God took place uniformly from August 31, 1964 to December 17, 1964 in Yugoslavia.
The interior of the pyramid of the sun was built in the Avala studio in Belgrade . Due to bad weather, numerous outdoor scenes had to be shot in an artificial outdoor landscape in the studio. The lava road originally planned for the final scene turned out to be a faulty construction, so that it was only possible to work on a model with liquid lava preparation.
The Treasure of the Aztecs and The Pyramid of the Sun God ran separately only in the German-speaking countries and in Czechoslovakia, elsewhere there was only a one-piece version to be seen.
Reviews
The contemporary reviews have been mostly negative. The director was particularly criticized.
“Robert Siodmak went to Karl May's empire of the Aztecs to find a treasure trove of gold and possibly bring home a real hit. However - all good spirits left him, he completely lost track of the plot and even managed to demote his star Lex Barker to an extra role. "
“Badly cut (obviously from remnants of the previous film), boringly photographed, staged powerlessly, interspersed with unimaginably naive puppet theater dialogues and equally bumbling 'nature' recordings from Brauner's studio, the film is a sad example of inadequate German technology and production methods. But an acting talent can be discovered: Michèle Girardon in the role of the traitor-like traitor; each of her appearances is a ray of light in this otherwise rather gloomy pseudo-spectacle. "
"The former realist (' Menschen am Sonntag ') and later dream manufacturer (' Der Schut ') Robert Siodmak staged the film as if it had already been scheduled in the afternoon television program: for the children's class."
“After the excellent first part, the sequel THE PYRAMID OF THE SUN GOD falls off a bit. The dialogues are often paper, and the music repeats the themes of the first part in all too uniform variations. However, these weaknesses are compensated for by wonderful nature shots of 'Europe's Wild West' Yugoslavia and the fantastic buildings [...], which are initially assumed to have been taken on the spot, namely in Mexico. "
"Karl May rotates in the grave - and the pleasure is nevertheless general."
“[...] weak Karl May film adaptation. (Rating: moderate) "
“THE PYRAMID OF THE SUN GOD is the purest colportage in the cinema - here the film is like Karl May's booklet novel. […] For lovers of burial chambers, instruments of torture and gloomy pyramid tombs, on the other hand, a pleasure. "
"A low-tension film, made according to the usual patterns between action and striving comedy, surprisingly raw in some details and also too thoughtlessly flat."
media
book
- Karl May - Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 52: The pyramid of the sun god , Karl-May-Verlag, ISBN 3-78020052-X
- Author collective: The great album of the Karl May films. Volume 2 . Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004, 287 pages, ISBN 3-89602-479-5
- Michael Petzel: Karl May Filmbuch , Karl-May-Verlag, Bamberg, second expanded edition 1999, ISBN 3-7802-0153-4
VHS / DVD
- The pyramid of the sun god
music
- Wilder West - Hot Orient - Karl-May-Filmmusik 1936 - 1968 - Bear Family Records BCD 16413 HL - 8 CDs with 192 pages of film book
Individual evidence
- ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier, Berndt Schulz: Lexicon "Films on Television" (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 658
- ↑ The pyramid of the sun god. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 11, 2016 .
Web links
- Pyramid of the Sun God in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The pyramid of the sun god in the German synchronous file
- The pyramid of the sun god at Filmportal.de
- further sound carriers with film music