The White Ecstasy (film)
1931 film by Arnold Fanck

The White Ecstasy (German: Der weiße Rausch) is a 1931 German mountain film written and directed by Arnold Fanck and starring Hannes Schneider, Leni Riefenstahl, Guzzi Lantschner, and Walter Riml. The film is about the skiing exploits of a young village girl (played by Riefenstahl), and her attempts to master the sport of skiing and ski-jumping aided by the local ski expert (played by Schneider). Filmed on location in Sankt Anton am Arlberg, the film was one of the first to use and develop outdoor film-making techniques and featured several innovative action-skiing scenes.
Two Tyrolean skiing stars, Walter Riml and Guzzi Lantschner, have important parts in this movie. They play two Hamburger carpenters in their traditional outfits. They come to the Arlberg and try to learn how to ski with the aid of two different skiing books. A Weisse Rausch downhill race, based on the film, is held every April in St. Anton.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q872972. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1931.
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This entry incorporates text from “The White Ecstasy (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.