S.O.S. Iceberg

In a departure from the trademark Alpine settings of Arnold Fanck's Bergfilme ("Mountain Films"), S.O.S. Iceberg (S.O.S. Eisberg) takes place off the coast of Greenland, where an explorer, Karl Lorenz (Gustav Diessl), is stranded on a steadily-eroding iceberg. A rescue crew, led by the heroic Johannes Krafft (Sepp Rist), reaches Prof. Lorenz, but also becomes stranded, as does Mrs. Lorenz (Leni Riefenstahl), who crashes her plane while trying to land in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Surrounded by polar bears on their shrinking iceberg, the explorer and his would-be rescuers battle the elements, and each other, while waiting for a miracle.

S.O.S. Iceberg was filmed simultaneously in an English-language version, which is presented in its entirety on this DVD. The differences between the two are not merely lingual. Each film is edited differently and includes prolonged sequences not seen in its transatlantic counterpart.

*Note: the actors Gordon Gowland and Rod La Rocque only appear in the US version of the film.