Montana Trap

In Fort Lane, high in the Rocky Mountains, ruthless profiteers, shady adventurers and negligent troops of the U.S. Dragoons terrorise defenceless settlers and prevent peaceful coexistence with the Native Americans. Potato Fritz, Bill Addison and Sergeant Stark each try in their own way to fight the well-organised, merciless bandits. ‘Potato Fritz’ is the very human and humorous story of the adventures, struggles and dangers faced by the pioneers as they followed the Oregon Trail westward around 1850 to build a new home. Peter Schamoni's ‘Potato Fritz’ is a western that seems curious from today's perspective, with Hardy Krüger in the title role of the potato-planting westerner. In a supporting role is football world champion Paul Breitner, dubbed and, although he plays a soldier, sporting a wild hairstyle. The seemingly silly title ‘Potato Fritz’ seems to confirm the instinctive suspicion that the film belongs in the ‘German trash’ category. But far from it: Peter Schamoni's western is an even greater curiosity than one might imagine... Schamoni gave three reasons for choosing the Western genre. Firstly, he noticed a certain ‘audience fatigue’ with contemporary issues. Secondly, he felt that a topic such as European settlers could best be portrayed from our perspective. And finally, there was a family connection, as a great-great-uncle had emigrated to Montana in 1860 and descendants still live there. The film song ‘He's a Friend of Mine (The Ballad of Potato Fritz)’ is performed by David Hess. The film was shot on location in Montana and Almería. (Source: Wikipedia) "Even the opening scene of the film, the attack on the soldiers, is staged as a violation of Western conventions. Instead of bloody bullet holes and falling victims, there are impressions of indifferent wildlife accompanied by the sound of gunfire. Only then does Schamoni venture a cautious glance from a safe distance at the battlefield unfolding below him. (...) In scenes such as the one in which an arrogant, self-righteous preacher (Peter Schamoni himself) approaches a herd of buffalo with his arms spread wide and armed only with the Bible, attempting to drive away the “demonic brood” with the word of God, the socially critical and satirical impetus of Schamoni's film clearly comes to the fore. The director leaves no doubt that for him, the Western genre is little more than a mask that he playfully employs. However, this does not mean that he treated the genre with the condescension of an intellectual artist: his love for the greatest of all film genres is evident in his choice of cast. Alongside international film stars such as Hardy Krüger, Stephen Boyd and Anton Diffring, striking faces such as Arthur Brauss, (...) David Hess and Dan van Husen appear alongside German acting greats such as Rainer Basedow, Friedrich von Ledebur and Diana Körner. Anyone interested in the fringe phenomena of German cinema cannot ignore ‘Potato Fritz.’ (Oliver Nöding, on: filmgazette.de)