Product Details

• Directors: Leni Riefenstahl
• Format: Black & White, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full length, Limited Edition, Special Edition, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: German (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Pathfinder Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: June 27, 2006
• Run Time: 204 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000FQJA2S
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,777 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Olympia: The Complete Original Version (The Leni Riefenstahl Archival Collection)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

This limited edition 2-disc set features the complete original version of OLYMPIA, presented for the first time on DVD. (All Region, NTSC)

Special Edition DVD features: Over 5 hours of material including JUGEND DER WELT ("Youth of The World") Official Documentary of the 1936 Winter Olympics at Gaemisch-Partenkirchen, DIE KAMERA FAHRT MIT ("The Camera Goes Too") 1936 Documentary by Bavaria-Filmkunst featuring footage from Leni Rifenstahl’s films OLYMPIA and TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. Deleted Scenes, Biography, Still Gallery, German with ON/OFF English subtitles and English language, Dolby 2.0 audio, Essays by film historian David Calvert Smith, Trailer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

104 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Wonderful (cinematography) Horrible (transfer) of Olympia, July 2, 2006

By 

D. C. Hociota (Sibiu, Romania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Olympia: The Complete Original Version (The Leni Riefenstahl Archival Collection) (DVD)

Olympia is a piece of sport history coated in a magnificent art form. The superlatives aren't enough to describe this documentary; a veritable time machine traveling to an amazing and Orwellian future Valhalla called Nazi Germany.
1936 Olympiad was also well renown for the first to be broadcast on a form of television. This DVD sadly has an image quality comparable to what the citizens of Berlin saw on those twenty five large screens scattered along the City's main boulevards 70 years ago. Having seen some excerpts from "Olympia" in the documentary `The Wonderful Horrible life of Leni Riefenstahl" on DVD, I had great expectations concerning the image quality of this new release. What a disappointment! No one bothered to digitally remove the annoying scratches not mentioning the total absence of any timid tentative of restoration of a decent audio sound. Everything seems like a low resolution transfer from a cheap VHS . Let's hope that some day Criterion Collection will do this film the justice it deserves.

71 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Be Honest, December 1, 2006

By 

Baron von Munchhausen (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Olympia: The Complete Original Version (The Leni Riefenstahl Archival Collection) (DVD)

The original, as I viewed it on public television perhaps twenty years ago, was spectacular.

But the problems in this version are not just superficial and are not simply ones that some hyper-purist would notice. They include tiling, caused by extreme compression; scratches and blips galore; grey tonal quality converging on nil, and sometimes making it seem like one is looking through a duststorm; ridiculous cropping of the image, often even cutting off the heads of the subjects. The audio's flaky, too, especially noticeable in the sometimes lurching, but always tinny rendition of the orchestral scoring.

Weirdly, the package seems to have been conceived well, with nice features included. How is it possible, then, to have messed up the technical execution so badly?

108 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Classic Film / Horrible transfer, July 6, 2006

By 

Orson Swelles "filmfanatix" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Olympia: The Complete Original Version (The Leni Riefenstahl Archival Collection) (DVD)

I have been waiting for Criterion to release this for 4 years now. With the technology of restoration of older films vastly improving I must say this is the worst transfer that I have seen of an older film released in the last two years. Don't spend your money on this edition and hope that Criterion will release this in our lifetime!