1933 - SOS ICEBERG, more amazing on location filming from Arnold Fanck

More on location winter hell madness from  Dr. Arnold Fanck as he sticks the cast and crew on an iceberg that is slowly falling apart.

The story has something to do with a polar expedition looking for another polar expedition.  Expedition number two ends up stuck on an iceberg that is drifting out to sea.

The leader of the expedition is the fiancee of Leni Riefenstahl.  Riefenstahl takes off in an airplane looking for him and crashes her plane onto the same damn iceberg in a extreme example of plot coincidence.

As usual in a Fanck film it's all about spectacular sequences.  SOS Iceberg certainly has them.  Avalanches, glaciers falling apart, polar bears attacking people and lots of icebergs tipping over in the Arctic water.  Towards the end there is a large scale rescue scene with hundreds of Eskimos in kayaks rushing to save the cast before the iceberg falls apart, very impressive stuff.

This was an English/German co production which means that the film was shot simultaneously in both languages for world wide release.  Tay Garnett supervised the English language scenes but the good stuff is all Fanck.

Riefenstahl paying her dues as usual in a Fanck film

Fanck was known for putting his actors in extreme danger while filming on location in his mountain films in the 1920's.   He apparently hadn't changed his ways for SOS Iceberg.   At the end of the film the leader of the expedition intones, "let us remember our colleagues didn't die in vain."  The last line should probably have been "let us remember no actor died making this film."

76 minutes

1930 - STURME UBER DEM MONT BLANC or Storm Over Mt Blanc

David Lean almost drown some of his cast shooting the big storm scene in Ryan's Daughter.  But when it came to putting actors in peril, Lean looked like a pussycat compared to what the director Arnold Fanck did to his cast in Sturme uber dem Mont Blanc.

Fanck is so intent on his vision of portraying heroic German men and women pitted against the forces of nature that he risked their lives at times to get the most spectacular mountain climbing photographic compositions that he could achieve.  

Once again future director Leni Riefenstahl stars for Fanck.  She's part of a love triangle between a scientist living on Mt. Blanc and a musician who are both infatuated with her.  The last third of the film has Leni trying to rescue the scientist who is slowing freezing to death on Mt. Blanc during a big storm  after losing his gloves.  The dramatic elements to the film are pretty weak and the love story is not really developed very well, but the film is really about Fanck demonstrating his skill capturing the beauty and danger of living and climbing on a mountain.  

Riefenstahl's has kind of an interesting character in a film that's pretty weak on character development.  When the film starts, she is shown in an observatory apparently working as some kind of astronomer.  She tells her leading man that she is not your stay at home and bake cookies for her husband type of woman.  Of course that all changes later and any attempt at her being an early feminist ends when the love triangle plot kicks in.

Arnold Fanck and his film team photographed some of the most incredible images of Mt. Blanc and the surrounding area that I have every seen.  Fanck had a very strong visual sense throughout the film   photographing landslides and snow storms in incredibly dramatic ways.  Even in the scenes in the observatory where Riefenstahl works, Fanck makes the telescope seem like a very powerful and forbidding instrument. 

If Franck had to risk the lives of a few actors and stuntmen in an avalanche or snowstorm, so be it.  The morale of the story seems to be, don't go outside in a snowstorm and lose your mittens.  

This film is a pretty impressive achievement in film making.

1929 - THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU is some thing to see

Shot over a five month period from January until June of 1929 literally on a mountain. Temperatures during filming were in the -50's to -60's at times. This film is really something to see.

 

Amazing photography, incredible effects achieved with light and shadow.

The film stars Hitler's favorite film director Leni Riefenenstahl who would go on to film documentaries for the Third Reich. One scene has her been hauled up the side of the mountain while an avalanche is falling on her what fun that must have been.

 

Incredible flying sequences by a German World War I fighter ace (62 confirmed kills) named Ernst Udet. It's unnerving to watch him fly so close to the mountain.

No special effects. An amazing film.

150 minutes.