"Winnetou und Shatterhand im Tal der Toten" or "The Valley of Death" is the last German-language Winnetou film from the 1960s and also the way it all ended unless you count the Winnetou film Brice made 30 years later. This one has him and Lex Barker once again reunited and the good thing is that they have a lot more screen time than in previous films that were actually no real Winnetou films anymore. Another good thing is that it runs for under 90 minutes, so stays pretty essential. But this is also all the positive there is. I must say I was not too impressed by anything in here other than the landscapes once again, but then again I am not the greatest Winnetou film fan at all. Harald Reinl is back as writer and director and maybe this is a reason why the film did not suck altogether as we was extremely successful and among Germany's most known filmmakers for a long time. He was at the age of 60 when this film came out and it was briefly before his Oscar nomination. In terms of the story and script/plot, I would say that it is about on par with most of the previous films. If you liked these, go check it out. I personally did not like them that much, but I must say that I have seen a lot worse from the franchise. And there are the usual faces again. Ralf Wolter and Rik Battaglia are joined by the stunning Karin Dor as female lead this time. As a whole, I give this one a thumbs-down, but looking at how this is already the 11th movie, it is still surprisingly bearable.
Review of The Valley of Death
