The Kaiser of California (Der Kaiser Von Kalifornien) (Blu-ray) by Stuart Galbraith IV I confess a fascination with German-made Westerns. Their production peaked during the 1960s, when big-budget adaptations of German author Karl May's Western novels were huge hits at the box-office there. Unlike the gritty, grimy, and cynical Spaghetti Westerns concurrently produced or co-produced out of Italy, the Westerns from West Germany (and, to a lesser degree, East Germany) were more classical in style, more like Hollywood Westerns of the ‘40s, romanticized though incorporating singularly German interests and characters.The Kaiser of California (Der Kaiser von Kalifornien, titled The Emperor of California in the English subtitles) is a 1936 film, making it the first movie Western offering under Nazi Germany. It jibes with the party's political views in some respects, but probably that's mostly coincidental. It's as much a biographical drama as a Western, as it traces...Read the entire review »