Adventure Calls! Karl May at CCC Blu-ray collects seven landmark 1960s adventure films produced by Artur Brauner at CCC Film, representing the most successful screen adaptations of Karl May’s beloved novels. A towering figure in German popular literature, May’s sweeping tales of frontier heroism and exotic travel found their definitive cinematic form in these lavish productions, all newly restored in 4K and presented together for the first time ever on home video in North America.
 
The set features two classic Old Shatterhand adventures starring Lex Barker as the noble frontiersman and Pierre Brice as the Apache chief Winnetou. Old Shatterhand and Winnetou and Shatterhand in the Valley of Death pit the duo against conspiracies designed to ignite war between Native Americans and white settlers, followed by a daring attempt to hijack a U.S. Army gold shipment. These films helped establish the mythic tone and moral clarity that would later influence the Spaghetti Western boom.
 
The collection also includes three globe-trotting adventures following Kara Ben Nemsi through the Balkans and the Middle East — The Shoot, Through Wild Kurdistan, and In the Kingdom of the Silver Lion — as well as two sweeping Mexican-set epics, The Treasure of the Aztecs and The Pyramid of the Sun God, charting Dr. Karl Sternau’s quest for riches in service of political revolution. Shot in stunning European locations and directed by major international filmmakers including Robert Siodmak and Harald Reinl, these films blend Westerns, Arabian adventures, and serial-style spectacle into a uniquely German vision of cinematic adventure.
 
Wildly entertaining and historically influential, the Karl May films at CCC laid essential groundwork for later European genre cinema. Presented here in pristine high definition from new 4K restorations by CCC Film, this limited box set represents the definitive archival edition of these enduring adventure classics.
 
directed by: Robert Siodmak, Hugo Fregonese, Franz Josef Gottlieb, Harald Reinl
starring: Lex Barker, Pierre Brice, Daliah Lavi, Guy Madison
1964–1966 / approx. 720 min / German with English subtitles