© 2014 William Ahearn

A brutal survival film and a part of a genre that still resonates with audiences, this entry is considered a classic. Directed by Arnold Fanck and Georg Wilhelm Pabst – considered by some to be Fanck’s best film – the film was a critical and commercial success and starred future Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl and featured WWI flying ace Ernst Udet – who would rise to a major position in the Luftwaffe before committing suicide. 

A solitary man searches the crevasses of the mountain to retrieve the body of his wife – lost ten years ago – and meets a newly wed couple and they decide to climb Pitz Palu together. A storm arrives and everything goes to the white hell. Rescue crews try to save them. Not everybody makes it.