The White Hell of Piz Palü (Silent Film 1929)

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 G. W. Pabst and starring Leni Riefenstahl, Gustav Diessl, Ernst Petersen, and World War I pilot Ernst Udet.

Written by 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.

Cast & Characters:
Gustav Diessl as Dr. Johannes Krafft
Leni Riefenstahl as Maria Maioni
Ernst Petersen as Hans Brandt
Ernst Udet as himself
Mizzi Götzel as Maria Krafft, the wife of Dr. Johannes Krafft
Christian Klucker as Christian, the mountain guide (Otto Spring)
Kurt Gerron as a night club guest