“Our famous cinema diva Asta Nielsen has carried off another great triumph in the new comedy Zapata’s Band. A brief summary of the plot: a film production company sends a group to sunny Italy to shoot a gypsy drama. A real band of robbers, however, happens to be holding out in the same region, on the run from the police. While the cinema actors are busily filming, the clever bandits avail themselves of the opportunity and steal their civilian clothes, using them to cross the border to safety. Of course the unfortunate actors are regarded as the real robbers, and face the possibility of having to pay for their sins. They are only saved from prison and the gallows by the intervention of their country’s ambassador. (…) Asta Nielsen, as the star of the group, has the possibility to once again give free rein to her saucy humour and display her versatility and agility”.

Anonymous, “Der Kinematograph”, Dusseldorf, 11 March 1914