"The script to this film is loosely based on existing records," reads the introductory remarks of this historical drama about the 19th-century immigrant settlers in California. In fact, it is a highly fictionalized take on the story of Johann August Sutter (Suter in the subtitles), the German-born printer who emigrated from Switzerland to the U.S. and settled the area that kicked off the 1849 California Gold Rush. His story also inspired the 1936 Sutter's Gold with Edward Arnold, among other films. This German version came out the same year.
Italian-born Luis Trenker writes, directs, and stars as Sutter, a printer who uses his press to extoll German values in Switzerland and flees the oppressive government for the freedoms of the new land. After spending time as a trapper, he travels west, takes leadership of a lost wagon train, and finds Sutter's Mill in the rich land by the Sacramento River.
When gold is discovered, the hard-working farmers and loggers we're shown contentedly toiling away on Sutter's land leave to make their fortunes panning for gold. Leading the rebellion is Harper (August Eichorn), the burly, brooding outlaw who robbed Sutter and his partners on their journey west. Harper becomes a kind of dark reflection of the heroic, idealized Sutter, a ruthless villain who, for no good reason, has Sutter's young sons murdered.
The film, produced during the era of Nazi control of the German film industry, is essentially a German western shot in part on location in Arizona and California. While it doesn't have any explicit Nazi propaganda, Trenker celebrates the leadership of a proud German who brings the values of the Fatherland to the American frontier.
As the film's title suggests, Sutter has become a kind of king of his domain and is appalled that his settlers have given up tending the land for the "easy" money of gold prospecting. The irony that the man who once defied authority for his beliefs and left oppressive rulers to follow his own dream now opposes the efforts of other settlers to makes their own fortunes is lost on the film.
But it is gorgeous, with magnificent landscapes shot on location in the Grand Canyon and Death Valley, among other American locations, and presented with a big, grand musical score by Italian composer Giuseppe Becce. And unlike American westerns of the time, the Sutter in this story has a deep respect for Native Americans and their culture and he makes peace with them immediately.
The film was restored by the F.W. Murnau Stiftung in 2015 and makes its American home video debut on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino Classics. It is presented with optional audio commentary by film historian Eddy Von Mueller, who places the film in a historical and cultural context. A strong option purchase.