The Blue Light

On full-moon nights a blue light rises from the peak above a village in the Dolomites, and the young men who climb after it do not come back. Junta, the one person who can get up those rocks, is written off as a witch. Vigo, a painter down from the city, gets close to her, finds the crystal grotto behind the light, and does the thing he believes will make the village rich. It was Leni Riefenstahl's first film as a director. She wrote it with the Hungarian critic Béla Balázs, whose name was on the directing credit at the 1932 premiere. After 1933 she had herself listed as sole director, and the 1937 reissue cut Balázs, Carl Mayer and the producer Harry Sokal from the titles because all three were Jewish.