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.

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.

*Note: this review is of the German language version of the film with English subtitles.* This film is certainly not one of the great pieces of European art cinema that I normally relish. It is, unabashedly, a simply adventure narrative yet, on its own merits, it succeeds brilliantly. It is in the vein of a "Boy's Own" adventure, yet, thankfully, the jingoism so often present in those tales is completely absent. Indeed, anyone who grew up reading adventure stories of polar exploration and the hunt for the North-West Passage will love it.Unfortunately, the characters are weakly-written and largely interchangeable. Leni Riefenstahl is particularly wooden and the character she plays is ridiculous (a female pilot/adventuress.) The lack of characterisation is the film's biggest flaw but the director wisely lets the environment star instead in this wonderfully-atmospheric man-versus-nature drama and the cinematographic views of Greenland are quite stunning at times.There are some wonderful symbolic moments, many symbolising the failure of modern technology to cope with this beautiful yet intrinsically hostile environment. Hence, there is the beautiful shot of the man standing alone on the tiny piece of ice, rapidly moving past the other man on the sinking aeroplane. There is also the brief but beautiful shot of the gramophone covered in icicles and the general unreliability of the radio-telegraph and Riefenstahl's crash in the other aeroplane.The film also depicts the irony of man, accustomed to being the master of his environment, suddenly finding himself vulnerable as the hunter becomes the hunted in the polar bear scene.The return to the primitive is also symbolised as the men are forced to eat raw fish, losing even one of the most basic hallmarks of human progress, the ability to make fire. This scene parallels that of two polar bears attempting to eat a seal, showing how the people are returning to the animalistic just to survive in this hostile terrain.Ultimately, this film really displays the spirit of adventure found in those novels typically beloved by young boys between the ages of nine and thirteen. However, it is not a children's film; as an adventure, it is suitable for the whole family. The great tragedy is that films like this are simply not being made any more, at least not in the English-speaking market and especially not by Hollywood. Where are the pure adventure stories aimed at boys? This market is simply not being tapped by modern film-makers.To end, here, refreshingly, is a film aimed the young that predates the cynical era of exploitation via merchandising, product placement and tie-ins. Much, much better still, there is virtually no violence on display until a very brief fist-fight towards the end and, thankfully, there is not a single gun to be seen.

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.