The White Hell of Pitz Palu
| The White Hell of Pitz Palu | |
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German theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | |
| Produced by | Harry R. Sokal |
| Written by |
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| Starring |
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| Music by | Willy Schmidt-Gentner |
| Cinematography | |
| Edited by |
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Production
company |
H. R. Sokal-Film GmbH
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| Distributed by | Aafa-Film AG |
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Release date
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Running time
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150 minutes |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | Silent film, German intertitles |
The White Hell of Pitz Palu (German: Die weisse Hölle vom Piz Palü) is a 1929 German silent mountain film co-directed by Arnold Fanck and Georg Wilhelm Pabst and starring Leni Riefenstahl, Gustav Diessl, Ernst Petersen, and World War I flying ace Ernst Udet. Written by Arnold Fanck and Ladislaus Vajda, the film is about a man who loses his wife in an avalanche while climbing the Piz Palü mountain, and spends the next few years searching the mountain alone for her body. Four years later he meets a young couple who agree to accompany him on his next climb. The White Hell of Pitz Palu was filmed on location in the Bernina Range in Graubünden, Switzerland. The 1929 theatrical release starred Kurt Gerron, who was Jewish, as a night club guest. The film was edited to remove scenes featuring Gerron, and it was rereleased as a 90-minute German-language sound film in 1935. It was remade in 1950.
Dr. Johannes Krafft (Gustav Diessl) and his bride Maria are spending their honeymoon mountain climbing in the Bernina Alps in southeast Switzerland. While climbing the north face of Piz Palü in the strong föhn winds, the loving couple's guide Christian (Christian Klucker) warns Krafft not to be cocky in this dangerous environment, but the doctor dismisses the warning. Just then a violent avalanche descends on the couple, the safety rope breaks, and Maria is swept down into a deep crevice in the Piz Palü glacier. Despite his wife's initial cries for help, Krafft is unable to reach her in her icy grave. Krafft spends the next years wandering the mountain alone like a ghost, looking for the body of his lost bride.
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