The White Hell of Pitz Palu

Dr Krafft lost his wife on Piz Palü on their honeymoon and climbs it every year to look for her, and a second couple go up with him. Avalanche, a ledge, a night on the ice, Krafft's coat given away, and a rescue by torchlight and by air, the pilot Ernst Udet flying his own plane through the Bernina. Arnold Fanck shot the mountain, with cameras on the glacier for the winter, and G. W. Pabst directed the people: Gustav Diessl as Krafft, Ernst Petersen and Leni Riefenstahl as the couple. The mountain film at its strongest, before the genre's politics caught up with it. The 150-minute restoration is the version to see. H. R. Sokal-Film, 1929.