S.O.S. Iceberg

This adventure is part travel documentary and part rescue drama as a small group of explorers becomes trapped on a melting iceberg off the coast of northern Greenland where this film was actually shot. Leni Riefenstahl, Gavin Gowland and other performers are merely the supporting cast for assorted glaciers and ice floes, as well as sled dogs, polar bears and various sea planes that buzz and glide over the starkly beautiful arctic vistas.

The Kino DVD release includes both the German and English versions which differ in content as well as language. The German version (directed by Arnold Fanck) is superior in all respects from narrative cohesion to pictorial quality to musical scoring (it reaches positively Wagnerian levels in one powerful sequence that finds Sepp Rist trapped on ice floes amidst raging wind- driven white-capped ocean currents with massive ice formations in the background). The cinematography, by Richard Angst and Hans Schneeberger (what perfect surnames for this project!) is as stunning as anything else of its time.

The English-language version, credited to director Tay Garnett, seems to move in fits and starts by comparison. Most of the dialogue is cut; Riefenstahl's few lines are clumsily inserted and the role played by Gustav Diessl in the German version is taken by Rod La Rocque who speaks barely 10 lines throughout. Gavin Gowland, well known to anyone who has seen Von Stroheim's GREED, surprises with a cultivated, rather high-pitched British accent. (In the German version he speaks a sort of baby-talk dialect and is referred to as "Fatso" by another character.)

In both versions there is a beautiful scene, apparently shot in Thule, Greenland, of a whole Eskimo village, with a dog population at least as large as the human, gathering to watch a sea plane circle overhead and land. Some of the shots of human-polar bear interaction look faked but on the whole it's a visually convincing presentation, with some exciting, rapid-fire edits too.

This film brings to mind TRADER HORN (1931) which also had a documentary feel and dealt with a group of explorers entering dangerous territory to search for a missing person.

Amazing adventure film made in Greenland as a co-production of the USA and Germany. The film has a documentary feel to it and although filmed in both English and German versions, much of the film is silent.

Rod La Rocque stars as an explorer who gathers an expedition team to find the files and whereabouts of an explorer who died in the Arctic. Once there, they realize they are too late because the ice is melting and the explorer is likely on the other side on a vast fjord. So La Rocque sets out by himself and becomes lost as well.

The rest of the team then sets out after La Rocque. German actor Sepp Rist becomes the new leader of the team, which include famed silent actor, Gibson Gowland who starred in GREED.

After the team loses a sled carrying their food and most of the sled dogs (they fall in an ice cave) the men now face starvation as well as exposure to the elements. n an attempts to cross the fjord they end up on a giant iceberg that breaks away from the mainland. They a adrift.

They make radio contact just before their batteries die, and La Rocque's wife (Leni Riefenstahl--infamous German filmmaker and actress) sets out to rescue them. But as she approacher the ice berg, her plane crashes and she is stranded with them.

The story is quite good, but it's the real footage of Greenland that is amazing. The shots of the frozen north, the icebergs, and the freezing Atlantic serve as a spectacular backdrop for the story. The aerial shots of rescue planes are also stunning.

The filming of the iceberg as it breaks apart and rolls in the ocean as it seeks a new balancing point is a one-of-a-kind scene.

Despite the star status of La Rocque and Riefenstahl, Rist and Gowland steal the film, which is beautifully directed by Tay Garnett with lots of closeups. This is a must-see film!

I am astonished that anyone can find these two versions equivalent in quality since the difference between them seems to be so glaring.

Fanck's German version is a very handsome film, told almost entirely by the camera, of men surviving in a hostile but beautiful environment. Garnett's US version, by continually adding material shot quite patently in the studio, by enlarging the Gibson Gowland part to have a western-type bad guy makes for a completely incoherent mish-mash that entirely ruins the consistent and transfixing visual beauty of the German film and undermines its grave and melancholy tone. The beautiful work of Fanck's team is all that is interesting in the US version but it is to be seen only in patches with irrelevant and uninteresting padding all over the place. It may be only ten minutes shorter but it must lack nearly half of the wonderful footage.

It is a rather typical example of the inability of the US cinema industry to make such co-productions with European film-makers or to reproduce the effects of European or Japanese films because of the almost incomprehension of the production values involved. The ghastly US version of the classic Japanese "monster film" Godzilla in the fifties shows an almost exactly similar lack of sensitivity.

In general where films exist in both European and US versions or in both Japanese and US versions, the rule of thumb is clear. Ignore the US version. Even where a clear remake is involved and even when the remake is relatively well done, the US version is almost invariably worse. The Magnificent Seven is a lot of fun but it bear no comparison with the Japanese original.

By contrast European co-productions of this period frequently produced two different but equally good films because there was no real cultural or cinematographic incompatibility. The French and German versions of Pabst's Threepenny Opera are both worth watching although surprisingly different as are the French and English (but not US) versions of his Atlantis. German/English co-productions were in fact common in the early thirties and produced some excellent films in both languages but this much rarer German/US collaboration produced only one excellent film and one collection of sweepings from the cutting-floor.

An expedition of explorers was striking out across Greenland (The Karajak Glacier.) Dr. Karl Lorenz (Gustav Diessl) was missing and presumed dead by all of his fellow explorers. New evidence, however, shows Dr. Lorenz has survived! So now, it is time to send out a rescue party.

Hella Lorenz (Leni Riefenstahl), wife of Dr. Lorenz and stunt pilot learns of the expedition's demise. Also, that her husband may be alive on a rogue Iceberg.

This film has lots of ice action. Once again, the true actors are the icebergs in this instance. You get to see some flying stunts. Also, almost everything is eaten; but do not worry, you do not have to see all these things eaten except for raw fish. So, sit back and enjoy the thrill of watching the drama in the Arctic Ocean, as the iceberg is soon to turn over.

This KINO presentation has both the original German version and the English version. I must say that the English version was shorter, chopped up, incoherent, and misleading. The one redeeming value of the English version of this film is that in the end, you can see that they had saved the dog. English or more dog friendly. However, the German version was a work of art. If you have trouble keeping up with the German version, there are English subtitles, and this is still far superior to the English version.

Being a fan of Leni Riefenstahl movies, I could not pass this one and I am glad I did not. I figured that she would be burnt out by now, but she just keeps getting better and better.

Dashing explorer Rod LaRoque, married to dashing aviatrix Leni Riefenstahl, gets stuck on an iceberg floating out to sea. Leni crashes her plane on that same iceberg, so she gets stuck too. Will the radio message "SOS ICEBERG" bring anyone to save them, or will they die of arctic cold and Luke-warm plot?

Well, this one is odd, and not worth much of an effort, despite some breathtaking visuals. The plot, involving some reckless and stupid arctic adventurers, a series of poor decisions, and a wanton disregard for wearing gloves in cold weather, makes it impossible to care much about the fix these dingbats are in. And the last scene, involving a five mile hike/swim to an Eskimo village, is too absurd to deal with without giggling. If I am going to suspend my disbelief willingly, I need something to hold onto, and could not find it here.

This is the only movie you'll find where Leni Riefenstahl speaks English. She doesn't say much, and her acting isn't too embarrassing. One imagines an alternate history where she makes a big splash (among other things, she is a looker), and stays in the US, and doesn't make Triumph of the Will. Problem is, this movie was never fated to make anyone a star. The only person who makes any attempt at stealing the film is Gibson Gowland (from Greed), whose hirsute villainy is more repellent than attractive.