The White Hell of Pitz Palu
by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Arnold Fanck
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DVD details
Actor: Ernst Petersen, Ernst Udet, Gustav Diessl, Leni Riefenstahl, Mizzi G?tzelDirector: Arnold Fanck, Georg Wilhelm Pabst
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: German (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Silent, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 133 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-11-08
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Kino Video
DVD Reviews of The White Hell of Pitz Palu
DVD Review: Historic film with innovative filming techniques
Summary: 4 Stars
Wei?e H?lle vom Piz Pal?, Die
Newlyweds Johannes Krafft (Gustav Diessl) and Maria Krafft (Mizzi G?tzel) have been warned not to be goofing off while they are climbing the pale mountain in the Bernina Alps of Switzerland. Of course, they do not listen and Maria falls into a crack and her rope brakes.
Now many years later Dr. Johannes Krafft is still wandering over the mountain looking for his lost Maria.
A new couple come to the common cabin on the where many climbers and skiers start from. Then they meet Dr. Krafft. A hand full of student hikers are about to attempt the toughest part of the mountain. Krafft wants to beat them to it. Only it is too dangerous to go alone. Therefore, the couple decides to help him get the jump on the students.
Well the race is on and here come the student up the back strip. Now we remember what happened to Maria Krafft when she did not heed the warning to pay attention. So guess what? Yep Hans Brandt (Ernst Petersen) insisted on taking the lead so he can show his stuff.
Will the students who are taking a shortcut get there first? On the other hand, do they get a few surprises?
This film is a true cliffhanger.
Will Hans showoff his stuff or will they get stuck on a cliff cave and need to be saved by Flieger Udet (Ernst Udet)?
What a minute did we not see Ernst Udet save someone with his plane in "Sturme uber dem Mont Blanc"
Additional Release Material:
Bonus Short - THE IMMODERATION IN ME
Additional Footage - 1935 sound version excerpt
Photo Gallery:
Photo Stills
This film is part of a series of German Mountain films that were popular in the lat twenties and early thirties. The stars of the film are the mountains and the clouds (shot in elapse time.) In this film, there were contrived and real avalanches. Actor Leni Riefenstahl almost was avalanched.
The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl
DVD Review: A thrilling mountain climbing adventure
Summary: 4 Stars
Arnold Fanck's spellbinding THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU is a 1929 German silent with English intertitles and a powerful orchestra score. The notorious Leni Riefenstahl stars along with two German actors I have never heard of, Gustav Diessl and Ernst Peterson. Pitz Palu is a dangerously steep Swiss mountain that a young mountain climbing couple and another man decide to ascend. But once they get to the top, how do they get back down without freezing to death?! Fanck loved making adventure films like this one, on actual locations, long before the current era of computer graphics and matte paintings. He directed the mountain climbing sequences, and the renowned G. W. Pabst directed the first half of the movie back in a Swiss town. Fanck edited the movie and collaborated on the screenplay with Ladislaus Vajda. The fearless and beautiful photography is by Sepp Allgeier, Richard Angst, and Hans Schneeberger. The stunning music score was recorded by Ashley Irwin in 1998. THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU is a marvelous adventure film, a long 133 minutes, when you want something unusual. The Kino Video print source is an uncut nitrate print that is in beautiful condition, or at least has been restored by European film archives to look beautiful.
Also included on the Kino DVD is a 59 minute documentary chat from 2002 by Sandra Maischberger with a 100 year old Leni Riefenstahl, who is just in from filming a scuba diving movie! She shows Maischberger various scrapbooks and autobiographies, plus stills from her oceanography movies. We also see scenes of her infamous TRIUMPH OF THE WILL (1934) and epic OLYMPIA (1937). Leni is a fascinating paradox, and this conversation (in German with English subtitles) makes me want to see the 190 minute 1993 documentary on her.
There are also a photo gallery for PITZ PALU and an excerpt from a 1935 sound reissue.
DVD Review: Spectacular Mountain Scenery against a backdrop of Tragedy
Summary: 5 Stars
Although originally a silent release (German) - this is one of my all time favorite films. I sincerely hope that Ray Harryhausen and Legend films will be able to colorize this film sometime in the near future - because it's spectacular mountain (Pitz Palu) scenery truly lends itself to the colorization process. Mountain climbing film - staring a young Leni Riefenstahl - against a backdrop of the tragedy - (of a doctor having lost his young bride ten years earlier on this very same mountain) - as portrayed magnificently by Gustav Diessl. DVD Review: A true glacial epic!
Summary: 5 Stars
Unlike Pabst, Arnold Franck has been a figure unexplainably forgotten at the moment of naming the great German filmmakers in this diamantine period, where the flame of the creativeness was directly proportional to the anguish and fears in the rest of the German citizenship.
Strongly influenced by the adventure novels of the Swiss Gustav Renker, who seemed to be possessed by the eternal conflict between the man and the nature, under the perspective of domain and constant struggle. The location photography was achieved on the snow-covered slopes of 12.000 foot high Piz Pal? in the Bernina Alps of Switzerland.
The undeniable artistic and financial triumph and universal acclamation was instantaneous, specially in a historic transition where the epic seemed to be absolutely absent from all the imaginable stages; because while Brecht and Kurt Weil appealed to the cynicism and decadence state; Shostakovich and Prokoviev depicted the somber nightmare around the fist iron man and Picasso gave us his Guernica; the loyal Surrealism and Dadaism Cerberus such Chirico, Dali, Ernst and the Great Depression in North America are evident and notorious evidences the world certainly was not the best of the possible worlds.
It is easily evident the underground voltage tension and anticipation premonitory for the cloudy times to come through the avalanches, precipices and high risks to climb and conquer: As you may realize the metaphor could not be more obvious.
Go for this flawless film.
DVD Review: A highlight of the "mountain film" genre
Summary: 4 Stars
This late German silent is very much an action and mountain-climbing disaster film, of which genre "The Holy Mountain" is probably the best remembered, and in comparison "The White Hell of Pitz Palu" probably falls short in a few areas. Firstly, there is not much of a story or plot as it revolves around three main characters who have a climbing accident, get stuck and inevitably need to be rescued. Without a doubt the action and disaster scenes (climbing walls of ice, falls and avalanches) are expertly done, and the cinematography is close to breathtaking. In fact, watching many of the scenes - beautiful melting and dripping icicles, moody clouds, glistening walls of ice and simply the rugged snow-capped mountains made me wish it could be in colour in order to be absolutely perfect. From a visual viewpoint, "The White Hell of Pitz Palu" can't be flawed, and I'm sure that anyone interested in mountaineering (or even photography of such mountains) will find this film exciting and interesting. But I'm not a mountain nor snow and ice person, and I usually prefer a good, more complex story and interesting characters, and for such viewers this film might feel rather slow and too much of the same thing. Although the orchestral musical score is new and suited to the scenes, it might not be to everyone's taste and I found it rather heavy at times - but perhaps that was the intention after all, since ominous big mountains do create that kind of mood! Nevertheless, I can see plenty of merit in other aspects of this film such as the impressive visual, photographic qualities (the picture quality is very good, by the way) and also a glimpse into the lives of the characters such as Dr Krafft who lost his wife in an earlier mountain climbing adventure, and who thereafter `haunted' the mountain, roaming around alone - until he meets a young honeymoon couple who change everything for him. The emphasis and focus in this film are not on the story or people, but rather on the physical mountain itself and above all, the forces of nature: wind, ice, storms and mere mortals staying alive in the ruthless elements. For more story and character angles with the same star (Leni Riefenstahl) and also directed by Arnold Franck, "The Holy Mountain" might still be the best of this `mountain film' genre for the general viewer.
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