NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Masters of Cinema Blu-ray (September 2026): Masters of Cinema have transferred four DEFA Westerns entitled "Eastern Trails" delivered over two dual-layered Blu-ray discs; Chingachgook, the Great Serpent (1967) / Fatal Error (1970) / Apaches (1973) / Blood Brothers (1975). The first three films were shot in 2.35:1 widescreen, while Blood Brothers is presented at 1.66:1. All four were filmed in color on Eastern Bloc locations that stood in for the American frontier and the Southwest: forests, rivers, rocky plateaus, snowfields and desert. The wide frame of the earlier films suits their sweeping landscapes, horseback chases, large-scale battle scenes and the athletic action that was Mitić's trademark. Blood Brothers' squarer frame brings the camera closer to its faces. DEFA's cinematographers (Otto Hanisch on Chingachgook, Eberhard Borkmann on Fatal Error, Helmut Bergmann on Apaches and Hans Heinrich on Blood Brothers) give the films a handsome, sometimes painterly look, with earthy tones and big skies. Eureka's Eastern Trails: The Western at DEFA Blu-ray set presents all four films in 1080P from restorations by the DEFA Foundation, two films per dual-layered Blu-ray. Chingachgook, the Great Serpent and Fatal Error are on the first Blu-ray, and Apaches and Blood Brothers are on the second. Eureka has divided the discs evenly: the four films' video bitrates are very close to each other, so the encoding is effectively identical and relatively robust across the set. However, quality varies quite a bit from film to film. Chingachgook, the Great Serpent is decent but not exceptional. It leans dark and has a greenish cast, especially in interiors such as the log-cabin scenes with Lilo Grahn, where the shadows look murky and flat, a look likely due to the East German ORWO color stock of the period. Exteriors look better, with reasonable depth and texture in the rocky landscapes and strong blue skies, and the bright reds and blues of the costumes and ceremonial masks stand out. Some wide and telephoto shots are soft, but the grain is natural and the image is clean. Fatal Error is the weakest of the four. Wide shots are noticeably soft and lack fine detail, the grain is heavier and coarser, and there's a pronounced green-blue cast: grass reads an unnaturally vivid green and skies lean cyan. On close inspection there is also some mild, low-frequency edge enhancement, visible as faint haloing around high-contrast edges. It's slight and won't bother most viewers at normal viewing distances, but it suggests the restoration tried to compensate for a soft source. Close-ups fare much better, with good texture in faces, leather and fabric. Apaches looks better at first glance than the films on the first Blu-ray. Colors are warmer and more natural and largely free of the green-blue cast, and close-ups of Mitić and Rolf Hoppe show decent texture. On closer inspection, though, the image has a somewhat brittle, processed quality, and zooming in reveals edge enhancement, with minor dark halos along high-contrast edges. Like Fatal Error, it seems to have been manipulated to compensate for its source, and the grain has a slightly harsh, digital edge as a result. It should be noted that Apaches opens with a card explaining that, in accordance with the UK's Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937, a handful of brief cuts have been made to obscure horse-tripping. Rather than removing footage, the screen briefly cuts to black over the offending images, preserving the film's running time and its soundtrack. This is a common requirement for UK releases of older Westerns and won't concern most viewers, but purists should be aware that the film isn't entirely uncut. Blood Brothers is by far the best-looking film in the set. Close-ups are excellent, with real texture in faces, stubble and fabric. The upside-down shot of a dead man on a boulder, with every pore of his face and every patch of lichen on the rock visible, is a highlight. Colors are rich and natural: the red embroidery and cowrie shells on the women's dresses, the red-wrapped bow, and Dean Reed's mustard-yellow shirt and striped scarf. Snowy and smoky wide shots, such as the burning village, are soft and grainy, but that's the source, and the image looks film-like without the obvious sharpening seen elsewhere in the set. Overall, the set is uneven. All four transfers are clean and well encoded, but only Blood Brothers looks truly impressive. Fatal Error and Apaches both show edge enhancement, and Chingachgook is dark and green-tinged, though it looks more natural than either of those two. Masters of Cinema are really at the mercy of the sources.

NOTE: We have added 160 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Masters of Cinema use linear PCM dual-mono tracks in the original German language. The scores are by Wilhelm Neef (Chingachgook and Fatal Error), Hans-Dieter Hosalla (Apaches) and Karl-Ernst Sasse (Blood Brothers) who also did the scores fro Signals: A Space Adventure, The Last Laugh, Destiny and Asphalt. They blend orchestral adventure with folk elements and sometimes modern touches, and Blood Brothers also features Dean Reed's own songs, including Love Your Brother. The German soundtracks were recorded with the usual dubbing and post-synchronization of the period, which suited the multinational casts. Dialogue is clear. Like most productions of their time and place, the films were post-synchronized, so the dubbed dialogue has a slightly detached studio quality, which is how they have always sounded. Masters of Cinema offer optional English subtitles for all four films on their two Region 'B'-locked Blu-rays.

Extras are available on Masters of Cinema Blu-ray set. Film historian Michael Brooke provides a new audio commentary for Apaches, and his knowledge of Eastern European cinema makes him an ideal guide to the film, to Kolditz and to the Indianerfilm cycle as a whole. "Singing Cowboy" is an 18-minute interview with East German cinema expert Seán Allan, co-editor of Re-Imagining DEFA: East German Cinema in its National and Transnational Contexts, about Dean Reed and Blood Brothers: Reed's unlikely life as an American defector who became a star behind the Iron Curtain, and how his fame fed into the film. "Old West, New Perspective" is a new video essay of over 20 minutes by Western scholar Jenny Barrett, author of Shooting the Civil War: Cinema, History and American National Identity, on how DEFA's Indianerfilme depicted American history. It's a useful look at how the films challenged Hollywood's myths of the frontier while bringing their own ideological agenda. Finally, there's an archival musical performance by Dean Reed, almost 4 minutes long, which shows the "Red Elvis" in his element. Chingachgook and Fatal Error have no dedicated extras. The limited edition of 2,000 copies comes in a hardbound slipcase with interior packaging featuring new artwork by Colin Murdoch. It includes a collector's book with part one of a new extended essay on the history of the DEFA Indianerfilme by Lee Broughton, author of The Euro-Western: Reframing Gender, Race and the 'Other' in Film. The "part one" strongly suggests that more Indianerfilme are on the way from Eureka. Fab!

Eastern Trails Blu-ray is a welcome introduction to one of the most fascinating side roads in genre cinema: the East German Western, made as an ideological answer to Hollywood and to West Germany's Karl May films, but just as much a crowd-pleasing adventure. Its constant is Gojko Mitić, the "Winnetou of the East," who stars in all four films with the athleticism and quiet dignity that made him the face of the cycle. Around him is a fine ensemble of Eastern Bloc talent. Rolf Hoppe (Mephisto, Three Wishes for Cinderella) shows up as a villain in both Fatal Error and Apaches. Armin Mueller-Stahl (Colonel Redl) brings real weight to Fatal Error, years before his international career took off. Rolf Römer is a likable Deerslayer in Chingachgook. And the American defector Dean Reed - kind of a Michael Sarrazin thing going on there - brings his idiosyncratic charm to Blood Brothers. The women make their mark too: Lilo Grahn's Judith Hutter in Chingachgook, Annekathrin Bürger and Krystyna Mikołajewska (Pharaoh) in Fatal Error, and Gisela Freudenberg's Fawn, the emotional center of Blood Brothers. Leon Niemczyk (Inland Empire,) Milan Beli (In the Dust of the Stars) and Colea Răutu add an international flavor to Apaches. The DEFA Foundation restorations vary. Fatal Error and Apaches show a few anomalies, and Chingachgook is dark and green-tinged, but Blood Brothers looks strong. The extras are modest but well chosen, with Michael Brooke's commentary and Jenny Barrett's essay as highlights, and Lee Broughton's essay suggests more to come. For fans of the Western, and of world cinema's stranger corners, this is a fascinating, entertaining Blu-ray set. Recommended! 

Gary Tooze