[Servant of the Nine]

Spooky as hell when you see the end of "Triumph of the Will".

Yes it is, but then Albert Speer and Lily Riefenstahl were geniuses at what they did.

[Prodigal Son]

Yes. Fortunately, Riefenstahl moved on to a field in which I also share an interest- underwater photography.

That final speech in Triumph of the Will is the creepiest thing I ever saw. I have watched it a few dozen times. That was Hitler at his zenith. You could feel the electricity going back and forth between him and his audience. Unnerving...

[The Right Stuff]

I believe it was LENI Renfenstahl, and believe it or not, she is still alive.

This article is bogus because the author takes many well-known AMERICAN characteristics (enthusiastic, endeavoring, inventive, pioneering) and tries to link them with scary Germanic characteristics - thus implying incipient fascism, as an earlier poster said.

The difference is that Americans have always challenged authority, and devotedly defended the freedom of the individual. My father, who lived in Europe for many years, told me that the ingrained Germanic instinct for obeyance even stretched to jaywalking when there was no traffic in sight.

Maybe Americans have only absorbed some of the best characteristics of all of our many cultures, while shedding the worst.

different premise, eh?

[Thud]

Leni Riefenstahl tried to get into Hitler's pants before he became Chancelllor, when Goebbels decided Hitler needed a dame for PR purposes, but Hitler panicked according to a friend of both Hitler & Riefestahl who helped Goebbels set them up. Herr & Frau Goebbels, and the friend, left the sweating Hitler alone with Riefenstahl in her loft (she had just shifted from acting to directing) "in violation of all the security regulations", but Hitler managed to keep his clothes on and get out of there by himself a while later.

See Olympia (Bfi Film Classics), by Taylor Downing.