Schnell on the Draw

Ten thousand Germans were in their places in Bad Segeberg's outdoor amphitheater last week to see Old Shatterhand make his grand appearance. Shatterhand slithered down a sheer rock wall and, armed only with moral courage, set out to defeat Brave Buffalo, chief of the Shoshone. In the end, it was no surprise that Old Shatterhand had triumphed again, and no surprise that the leader of the bad guys fell into a geyser and was parboiled.

Old Shatterhand, lean and heroic, is a German version of a U.S. cowboy who has made the Old West familiar country to every German child since Karl May invented him a century ago. In a long and fanciful lifetime (1842-1912), May was more than a Zane Grey to Germany, and more a popular moralist than a popular novelist. May became an authority on the wild West without straying from Dresden (where he kept his Villa Shatterhand littered with frontier souvenirs), and May's West was even nobler than the Lone Ranger's. Old Shatterhand (a German immigrant cowboy) brought Teutonic virtue to the plains, shunning six-shooters in favor of his sledgelike fists.

Innocent Grandeur. Last week's outdoor epic was Under the Vultures, an old May tale chosen for this year's Karl May Festival. In its ten years, the festival has drawn 800,000 visitors. The cowboy and Indian fans from all over Germany come for the festival, pitch tepees, fire blank pistols, call each other "Callamitty Jane" and, though few Germans can pronounce it, "Billy the Kid." And during the season, Bad Segeberg's best hotel offers "Dakota Weshungle mil Palushka Weshungle" (spiced buffalo meat with brown beans).

Karl May connoisseurs (more often adults than children) are willing to endure anything for the performances, which manage to achieve innocent, papiermache grandeur with a cast of 130 and a dozen horses. The German dialogue is speckled with Texan ("Well, greenhorn"), and the overture invariably includes such incongruous Americana as Sweet Betsy from Pike. Even the summer rainstorms cannot stop the show. Said one fan, donning his slicker: "In the Old West they didn't stop struggling just because it rained."

Simple Morality. Such ardor is not limited to Germany. Though Frenchmen insist that Germans are Europe's real cowboy fanatiques, the French still log many hours watching The Lone Ranger on television, and they are used to seeing their children hurry home from school to catch L'Aigle Noir (Black Eagle) Thursday afternoons. For serious children, French television is offering a new series: Veritable Histoire du Far West.

Japan, having had a fling at making its own westerns (starring Jo Shishido, whom studio admen modestly call the "third fastest gun in the world"--after Gary Cooper and Alan Ladd), is still watching 20 U.S.-made western serials on television. In two glorious years, though, Nikkatsu studios turned out nearly 30 eastern westerns, starting with The Quickdrawer and finally losing heart with Mexican Vagabond this year. Mexico was the nearest Nikkatsu dared come to the real thing. Said a studio spokesman: "We have too great respect for American cowboys to invade the real wild West in the U.S."

Foreign cowboys have a lot in common. All speak antic English. In Japan, the showdown is at the Yes Corral; in France, "redeye" is "vin rouge"; in May's plays, Indians who go on the warpath "dig up the hatchet." Instinctively, they choose the sexless life of simple, strong morality pioneered by Hopalong Cassidy. Says Actor Harry Walther, Bad Segeberg's massively handsome Old Shatterhand: "This role is a fulfillment of a childhood dream. Like every German kid, I knew Old Shatterhand intimately and longed to have the kind of adventures he did. I look at my work here as being a very moral and even--yes--a noble assignment."

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