Cinema: Leni's Olympics

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Hitler demanded a German victory in the 1936 Olympic games, and got it. He also demanded a film record of the victory for propaganda purposes, and got more than that. Olympische Spiele, produced by Hitler's favorite moviemaker, redheaded Leni Riefenstahl (and some 600 technicians), turned out to be a magnificent documentary film.

After a military victory that Hitler demanded but didn't get, Metropolitan Basso Alexander Kipnis and Cousin Leonid, who had bought negatives of the film from the U.S. Alien Property Custodian, made a distribution deal with United Artists. Last week, under the title Kings of the Olympics, Leni's work began its first general U.S. showing. Leni would scarcely recognize her handiwork.

Gone are the long, fawning close-ups of the Führer, gone the Wagnerian surges on the sound track to underline every German victory. Gone is any suggestion that the Germans (even hard-working Leni) had anything to do with the film; the distributors are taking no chances with U.S. public opinion. By shrewd editing, a 260-minute heil to German athletic prowess has been reduced to a 92-minute rah-rah for the All-American boy.

Though Sportscaster Bill Slater now ingratiatingly explains what is happening on the screen (apparently for the benefit of the blind), the film itself remains a brilliant solo on the optic nerve. Some memorable passages:

¶ The spectacle of chocolate-smooth Jesse Owens, streaking so far ahead of the field in a mere 100 meters that he finishes all alone in the picture frame.

¶ Prodigious John Woodruff, overtaking a pack of puny rivals in four giraffe strides to win the 800-meter run.

¶ A steeplechase water jump that produces five minutes of frustration-comedy as screamingly funny as a good Chaplin sequence. Horse after horse plops its resplendent rider into the drink, then surfaces with a burst of triumphant horse-laughter.