The original version of this German mountain film has long been considered lost. In spite of numerous extant re-release versions, no film elements were known to survive of the original German 35mm theatrical version, which was passed by the censor on 10 October 1928, and premiered in Berlin on 3 December that year.
Based loosely on historical events (and arguably Carl Haensel’s 1928 novel), Der Kampf ums Matterhorn recounts the race for the conquest of the Matterhorn, the last peak in the Alps still left unconquered in 1865. Jean-Antoine Carrel, mountain guide in the Franco-Italian hamlet of Breuil, succumbs to Italian nationalist interests and betrays his friend, British sportsman-mountaineer Edward Whymper, to whom he had pledged joint ascent (the film’s quadrangular love-plot, balanced between romance and brutal crime noir, has no roots in real life). In a close race against the all-Italian team setting out from Breuil, the Briton takes the peak via the Swiss route from Zermatt with a hastily assembled crew of French, Swiss, and British mountaineers – but at a cost.  The film features extensive sequences of great realism and naturalism, with striking compositions shot on location at the Matterhorn. Cinematographer Sepp Allgeier and his producer-director-star Luis Trenker expertly staged an epic tale of Man challenging nature, fate, and the heavens.
Originally a protégé, like Leni Riefenstahl, of Arnold Fanck, by 1928 Trenker was ready to take his career in hand and become his own director. For Matterhorn, Fanck’s role was limited to that of script co-author, while Trenker claims to effectively have directed it – a first in his career. Trenker himself recalled the genesis of the film: “I got to know three Jewish producers, Hohenberg, Oppenheimer, and Marcus, co-founders of Hom-Film. I presented my project to Hohenberg and told him: ‘I’m tired of waiting for the guys from Ufa. Would you want to finance the film? Give me the money required, and I will bring the story of the fight for the Matterhorn onto the screen.’ Hohenberg cautioned me: ‘But be aware this is not an easy task, and you have never directed a movie before.’ ‘Yes, for that matter, but I have shot three films with Fanck and have seen what a director needs to do.’ Finally, I won Hohenberg over to my plan, and he offered me 50,000 Marks for the film, adding: ‘I believe in you. If you need more money, you tell me.’ The first shots were filmed in Zermatt, where I knew many a mountain guide, as it was from there I had ascended the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc. … We respected each other, helped each other wherever we could, and so the work went ahead well and smoothly. As cameraman, I had the competent Sepp Allgeier. We sent the material we had shot to Hohenberg in Berlin. He instantly called and sent a telegram: ‘Footage shot so impressive we should make it a grand film. Suggest 120,000 Marks instead of the 50,000 originally suggested. Plot is to be complemented by a love story.’ I was very happy about the suggestion, if sceptical towards the idea of a love story. But the producers placated me by promising to draw upon Nunzio Malasomma and Mario Bonnard as directors. …  They had made many movies, especially silents. They spoke Italian, they barely mastered  German, but certainly understood about film. Mario Bonnard, who previously worked as an actor in France [sic], was a true gentleman. Malasomma was always a bit sickly, lean and nervous, and always had stomach ache. He was Bonnard’s assistant. Both had no clue about the mountains, no experience with the Alps. Very many exteriors had to be made for the film, and so we ventured on many a nice mountain tour. Without Malasomma though, and also without Bonnard, who was likable and able and experienced in his area, but also a bit lazy.” (Luis Trenker, interviewed by Piero Zanotto, in Zanotto, ed., Luis Trenker: Die weisse Leinwand, 1982; translated by the authors)
The film did so well that in 1934 a sonorized re-edit was released, trimmed of “mundane” details. Changes included deleting the comic-relief subplot starring the extraordinary Johanna Ewald, and substantially reducing her film husband Paul Graetz’s part. Still unhappy with the discrepancies of the plot versus the historical record, Trenker remade the subject in 1938, as Der Berg ruft, which in turn was adapted for the English-speaking market by scriptwriter Emeric Pressburger and producer Alexander Korda as The Challenge (Milton Rosmer & Luis Trenker, 1938). Even in his late career, Trenker kept revisiting the subject (and the two films), shooting a documentary, Erlebnisse am Matterhorn, as late as 1971.
The digital reconstruction of Der Kampf ums Matterhorn was undertaken in 2016 by the Deutsches Filminstitut in 4K, “loosely based” on an analog restoration completed by the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv in 2015. While photochemical reproduction had to rely on a single source material, an intentionally shortened 6-reel French release print conserved at the CNC at Bois d’Arcy (lacking the conquest of the peak), two additional sources could be used to complete the digital restoration. A 9-reel Czech release print, conserved by the Bundesarchiv Berlin, surviving in uncommonly damaged condition, was the only extant silent version containing the climactic conquest of the peak. A German 16mm non-theatrical release print from the early 1930s, conserved by the Deutsche Kinemathek Berlin, surviving only in a very fragmentary, shrunken, and brittle state, provided 35 original intertitles, along with three image-sequences not surviving in the two main source elements.
To reconstruct the missing German intertitles, both the German and Swedish censorship records were essential references. An additional title reference was a vintage Italian print conserved at the Cineteca Nazionale in Rome, but in the same abbreviated edit as the French release print, 6 reels only, missing the climactic battle for the peak. The digital reconstruction thus faced a number of challenges, since none of the surviving film elements represented the original German silent release version. Though the film passed German censorship a number of times, the crucial 1928 theatrical release censorship document unfortunately is lost. Consequently, the reconstruction had to operate on the premise that the 1933 silent 16mm re-release was close or identical in its titles to the 1928 original release. Not the least of the problems was the absence of the film’s climax and ending in its foreign release versions: in 2 of 3 extant vintage 35mm prints, the most essential parts of its action, one third of the film’s length, were omitted, presumably due to troubling changes in European relations and politics. The French and Italian distributors evidently had shied away from depicting British supremacy over the Italians. Even though the film dealt with a mountaineering expedition already half-a-century old by 1928, its story of a failed international collaboration, with resulting casualties, must have been considered too sensitive. Therefore, for the last 3 reels of the film, the digital reconstruction had to rely on the Czech-language print released by Pan-Film in 1929.

Anke Mebold, Ulrich Rüdel