The White Hell of Pitz Palu
Encyclopedia
The White Hell of Pitz Palu is a 1929
silent
mountain film
directed by Arnold Fanck
and Georg Wilhelm Pabst
and starring future filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl
and World War I
flying ace Ernst Udet
.
) dies after a crevasse
fall. It is implied that the accident was due to his negligence. Ten years later the newlywed Karl Stern (Ernst Petersen) and Maria Majoni (Leni Riefenstahl
) arrive in an alpine hut near St. Moritz
. They meet Dr Krafft who is obsessed with the death of his wife and is still searching for her in the mountains. Together they depart to climb Piz Palü
, not knowing that a storm is approaching. Trapped in the mountain and with Stern having broken his leg they are forced to spend the night on a small ledge. Dr Krafft who had given his coat to Karl does not survive until the next morning. Eventually the aviator Ernst Udet
(played by himself), who is also a friend of Karl and Maria, finds the couple. He alerts the rescuers who eventually safely escort Karl and Maria back to the valley.
in the Alps
. Work was divided between the two directors. Arnold Fanck was responsible for the location shots in the mountains, Georg Wilhelm Pabst was responsible for the indoor shots and was advising Fanck in matters of dramaturgy. The set design was by Ernö Metzner, the cinematography by Fanck's long-time collaborators Sepp Allgeier, Richard Angst and Hans Schneeberger. Fanck would continue to work with actors Leni Riefenstahl and Ernst Udet in the films Stürme über dem Montblanc and S.O.S. Eisberg
.
. The official German premiere was on November 15, 1929 in Berlin. In the first four weeks the film was seen by more than 100,000 people at the UFA Palast in Berlin, at this time Germany's largest and most important movie theater.
In 1930 a sound film
version in English
was released internationally. In 1935 a German sound film version with a film score by Giuseppe Becce
was produced. The film was shortened to 90 minutes. With the Nazis in power since 1933, the Jewish-sounding name "Karl Stern" was changed into "Hans Brandt". All scenes with the Jewish actor Kurt Gerron, who was murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp
in 1944, were cut from this release. A remake was produced in 1950 under the title Föhn by Rolf Hansen, starring Hans Albers
and Liselotte Pulver
.
The original version of Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü was lost until 1996. The film was restored in 1997 by the German Federal Film Archive. The original film score by Willy Schmidt-Gentner
is still lost.
In the New York Times, Mordaunt Hall
wrote that "Leni Riefenstahl is convincing", remarking on "a swift undercurrent of tenseness and anticipation that carries one along through the avalanches, up the precipitous and threatening mountainside and finally to the climax of the rescue."
's Inglourious Basterds. In Tarantino's film, the movie is just ending its run as the feature attraction advertised on the marquee of Le Gamaar cinema (in French: L'Enfer Blanc du Piz Palu), with a German-language billboard of Weisse Hölle vom Piz Palü above it. Also, when questioned by an SS officer regarding his unusual accent, disguised British soldier Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender
) claims to hail from Piz Palü, and that he and his family were cast as extras in the film.
1929 in film
-Events:The days of the silent film are numbered. A mad scramble to provide synchronized sound is on.*January 20 - The movie In Old Arizona is released. The film is the first full-length talking film to be filmed outdoors....
silent
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
mountain film
Mountain film
A mountain film is a film genre that focuses on mountaineering and especially the battle of man against nature. In addition to mere adventure, the protagonists who return from the mountain come back changed, usually gaining wisdom and enlightenment....
directed by Arnold Fanck
Arnold Fanck
Arnold Fanck was a pioneer of the German mountain film....
and Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Georg Wilhelm Pabst
-Biography:Pabst was born in Raudnitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary , the son of a railroad employee.Returning from the United States, he was in France when World War I began...
and starring future filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
and World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
flying ace Ernst Udet
Ernst Udet
Colonel General Ernst Udet was the second-highest scoring German flying ace of World War I. He was one of the youngest aces and was the highest scoring German ace to survive the war . His 62 victories were second only to Manfred von Richthofen, his commander in the Flying Circus...
.
Plot
The wife of alpinist Dr Johannes Krafft (Gustav DiesslGustav Diessl
Gustav Diessl was an Austrian artist, and film and stage actor.-Biography:Diessl was born Gustav Karl Balthasar in Vienna. In 1916, he was an extra on different stages in Vienna but was soon recruited into the army for World War I...
) dies after a crevasse
Crevasse
A crevasse is a deep crack in an ice sheet rhys glacier . Crevasses form as a result of the movement and resulting stress associated with the sheer stress generated when two semi-rigid pieces above a plastic substrate have different rates of movement...
fall. It is implied that the accident was due to his negligence. Ten years later the newlywed Karl Stern (Ernst Petersen) and Maria Majoni (Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
) arrive in an alpine hut near St. Moritz
St. Moritz
St. Moritz is a resort town in the Engadine valley in Switzerland. It is a municipality in the district of Maloja in the Swiss canton of Graubünden...
. They meet Dr Krafft who is obsessed with the death of his wife and is still searching for her in the mountains. Together they depart to climb Piz Palü
Piz Palü
Piz Palü is a mountain in the Bernina Range in Switzerland and Italy. There are three summits on its main ridge, which runs from east to west...
, not knowing that a storm is approaching. Trapped in the mountain and with Stern having broken his leg they are forced to spend the night on a small ledge. Dr Krafft who had given his coat to Karl does not survive until the next morning. Eventually the aviator Ernst Udet
Ernst Udet
Colonel General Ernst Udet was the second-highest scoring German flying ace of World War I. He was one of the youngest aces and was the highest scoring German ace to survive the war . His 62 victories were second only to Manfred von Richthofen, his commander in the Flying Circus...
(played by himself), who is also a friend of Karl and Maria, finds the couple. He alerts the rescuers who eventually safely escort Karl and Maria back to the valley.
Cast
- Gustav DiesslGustav DiesslGustav Diessl was an Austrian artist, and film and stage actor.-Biography:Diessl was born Gustav Karl Balthasar in Vienna. In 1916, he was an extra on different stages in Vienna but was soon recruited into the army for World War I...
: Dr Johannes Krafft - Leni RiefenstahlLeni RiefenstahlHelene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
: Maria Majoni - Ernst Petersen: Karl Stern
- Ernst UdetErnst UdetColonel General Ernst Udet was the second-highest scoring German flying ace of World War I. He was one of the youngest aces and was the highest scoring German ace to survive the war . His 62 victories were second only to Manfred von Richthofen, his commander in the Flying Circus...
: himself, flying ace Ernst Udet - Mizzi Götzel: Maria Krafft, the wife of Dr Johannes Krafft
- Christian KluckerChristian KluckerChristian Klucker was a Swiss mountain guide who made many first ascents in the Alps, particularly in the Bernina Range, the Bregaglia and the Pennine Alps.Amongst his first ascents were:...
: Otto Spring, mountain guide - Kurt GerronKurt GerronKurt Gerron was a German Jewish actor and film director.-Life:Born Kurt Gerson into a well-off merchant family in Berlin, he initially studied medicine but was called up for military service in World War I. Seriously wounded he qualified as a military doctor of the German Army...
: guest at night club
Production
The film was shot from January to June 1929 in the Bernina RangeBernina Range
The Bernina Range is a mountain range in the Alps of eastern Switzerland and northern Italy. It is considered to be part of the Central Eastern Alps. It is one of the highest ranges of the Alps, covered with many glaciers. Piz Bernina , its highest peak, is the most easterly four thousand-metre...
in the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
. Work was divided between the two directors. Arnold Fanck was responsible for the location shots in the mountains, Georg Wilhelm Pabst was responsible for the indoor shots and was advising Fanck in matters of dramaturgy. The set design was by Ernö Metzner, the cinematography by Fanck's long-time collaborators Sepp Allgeier, Richard Angst and Hans Schneeberger. Fanck would continue to work with actors Leni Riefenstahl and Ernst Udet in the films Stürme über dem Montblanc and S.O.S. Eisberg
S.O.S. Eisberg
SOS Eisberg is a German-U.S. coproduction, released by Universal Studios in both Germany and the U.S. The film is a dramatic mountain film directed by Arnold Fanck, and filmed in Engadin, Switzerland and in Greenland. The film premiered August 30, 1933 in Berlin. It was filmed simultaneously in...
.
Distribution
On October 11, 1929 the film premiered in Vienna. In Germany the film had its premiere in the same year on November 1 in StuttgartStuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
. The official German premiere was on November 15, 1929 in Berlin. In the first four weeks the film was seen by more than 100,000 people at the UFA Palast in Berlin, at this time Germany's largest and most important movie theater.
In 1930 a sound film
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
version in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
was released internationally. In 1935 a German sound film version with a film score by Giuseppe Becce
Giuseppe Becce
Giuseppe Becce was an Italian-born film score composer who enriched the German cinema.- Biography :Becce was born in Lonigo/Vicenza, Italy. He showed his musical talents early and was named the director of the student musical orchestra at the Padua University when he studied geography...
was produced. The film was shortened to 90 minutes. With the Nazis in power since 1933, the Jewish-sounding name "Karl Stern" was changed into "Hans Brandt". All scenes with the Jewish actor Kurt Gerron, who was murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
in 1944, were cut from this release. A remake was produced in 1950 under the title Föhn by Rolf Hansen, starring Hans Albers
Hans Albers
Hans Philipp August Albers was a German actor and singer. He was the single biggest male movie star in Germany between 1930 and 1945 and one of the most popular German actors of the twentieth century.- Life and work :...
and Liselotte Pulver
Liselotte Pulver
Liselotte Pulver , sometimes credited as Lilo Pulver, is a Swiss actress.Pulver was one of the stars of German cinema in the 1950s and 1960s, where she often was cast as a tomboy...
.
The original version of Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü was lost until 1996. The film was restored in 1997 by the German Federal Film Archive. The original film score by Willy Schmidt-Gentner
Willy Schmidt-Gentner
Willy Schmidt-Gentner was one of the most successful German composers of film music in the history of German-language cinema. He moved to Vienna in 1933...
is still lost.
Reception
The film was well received both critically and commercially. Several film historians cite it as Fanck's most successful picture critically and Riefenstahl's as an actress. It also became the second biggest box office hit of the year in Germany.In the New York Times, Mordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for The New York Times, from October 1924 to September 1934....
wrote that "Leni Riefenstahl is convincing", remarking on "a swift undercurrent of tenseness and anticipation that carries one along through the avalanches, up the precipitous and threatening mountainside and finally to the climax of the rescue."
Legacy
Both Pabst and Riefenstahl are referenced in Quentin TarantinoQuentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
's Inglourious Basterds. In Tarantino's film, the movie is just ending its run as the feature attraction advertised on the marquee of Le Gamaar cinema (in French: L'Enfer Blanc du Piz Palu), with a German-language billboard of Weisse Hölle vom Piz Palü above it. Also, when questioned by an SS officer regarding his unusual accent, disguised British soldier Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender is an Irish-German actor. He is best known for playing Lt. Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and Magneto in the superhero blockbuster X-Men: First Class...
) claims to hail from Piz Palü, and that he and his family were cast as extras in the film.