Stürme über dem Mont Blanc

Sturme uber dem Mont Blanc

Hella Armstrong (Leni Riefenstahl) is introduced to a rugged recluse meteorologist, Hannes (Sepp Rist), who lives alone at the top of a mountain. Both Hannes and his friend, pilot Ernst Udet (as himself), are vying for Hella. Hannes who thinks he has lost, unknown to Hella, forgoes his vacation form the cabin to find himself caught in a storm without gloves. Moreover, things are about to get worse. Will Hella find out in time to save him? Is Ernst still his friend and be able to fly to his aid? Or will this end with a Hannes-cycle?

At first, I thought that this film was not too sophisticated even for the time with its stilted dialog and frivolous story. Later in the film, the story started to come together to be more intriguing. And when the storm struck it became downright fascinating.

The stars of the film are the mountains and the clouds (shot in elapsed time.) This is one of the earliest of the series of German Mountain Movies. While Leni Riefenstahl was acting in this film, she learned the fundamentals of filming techniques that she expanded on in the films that she directed.

The version I watched has the option of English subtitles, which helped when Leni mumbled. However, occasionally you could hear the words, and the subtitles were a very loose paraphrase.

Now get the skinny on Leni in Die Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl (1993).