勃朗峰之王

Also known by its alternative title Der ewige Traum, Der König vom Mont Blanc is the last 'real' mountain film by the genre's inventor, Dr. Arnold Fanck (who famously insisted on his academic title in his films' credits). It tells the historic story of the first climbing of the Mont Blanc by Jacques Balmat (played by Sepp Rist). As Fanck describes in his autobiography Er führte Regie mit Gletschern, Stürmen und Lawinen, he intended to "create a historical film, with the purpose of not only showing the grandiosity of nature, but also a human being as its antagonist, who accomplishes a historical deed with far-reaching consequences." Which isn't exactly news as far as Fanck films are concerned, but anyway... 　　However, Fanck also decided to "turn the subject into a ballad and only stick to those facts which were regarded as truly historical by historians". And so we have not only the adventurous tale of the first climbing of Mont Blanc, but also the love story of Balmat and the village girl Maria ( a very young Brigitte Horney) with quite a bit of Fanckian mysticism thrown in on top of it. Actually, both plotwise and in its imagery, there are quite a few references to Riefenstahl's Das blaue Licht (which Fanck helped to edit), and also shows similarities to Trenker's 1938 Der Berg ruft (though that film is about the first climbing of the Matterhorn). 　　According to Fanck, the film was decidedly disliked by Goebbels because of its too 'positive' portrayal of the French people,and so the film was issued without much advertising in 1934 and was not a huge success. It still remains one of Fanck's least known films today. And while it may not feature any big stars, Der König vom Mont Blanc was impeccably photographed by Fanck stalwart Richard Angst and contains a lot of Fanck's usual spectacular mountain images, and so I'd say: the good Doctor did it again.