Here's one of those times when looking through glazed, bloodshot eyes pays off. Coming straight out of what was once known as East Germany are three feature films about the American West. Go ahead; do your double take. Yes, East German films, made smack in the middle of the Cold War, about what life was like in America during the Westward Expansion of the 1800s. I asked to review this just to see what the Communist propaganda machine was pumping out about American history, when life was overshadowed by the fears of living under a red moon, or in this case a red, white, and blue moon.

The DEFA was the East German film industry that produced such...uh, epics as this. Known as “Red Westerns,” they spin tales of the Old West from what they considered the Indians' side of the story. All three films were shot in places like Uzbekistan and Romania, and the dialogue is German. Serbian actor, stuntman, and author, Gojko Mitic stars in all three films playing the German James Bond of Native Americans as he fights the never-ending battles of what is called the "great white tide."

The first flick I picked out of the pack was the first one made, which was The Sons of Great Bear done in 1965. The story is about the white man’s lust for gold. It’s found in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory, and slowly but surely the Natives are being pushed out. Great Bear is a chief who has hidden his tribe’s gold. How or why these Dakota Indians had gold was never told. Maybe the East Germans were prescient about Indian gaming.

One white guy named Red Fox, apparently the East Germans weren’t up on American comedians, happens to be friends with chief Great Bear, so much so that he calls him his brother. Ah, but as Cain downed Abel, Red stabs Great Bear when the Chief refuses to tell where he hid the tribe’s secret stash. The sons of Great Bear wait a few years before going on the warpath and seeking revenge. In the meantime, they suffer being moved to a barren, desolate reservation and being treated poorly by the U.S. Army and any white settler who happens to be in the camera's eye.