Trivia for
Triumph des Willens (1935) More at IMDbPro »

• Clips from this film were used in an Allied propaganda short (reportedly the work of a Canadian film editor) set to the British dance tune, "The Lambeth Walk". The legions of marching soldiers, as well as Hitler giving his Nazi salute, were made to look like wind-up dolls, dancing to the music. Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels is reported to have seen a copy of the short film and was outraged beyond reason, leaving his screening room kicking chairs and screaming profanities.
  
  
• Only one scene, the review of the German cavalry, actually involved the German military. The other formations were party organizations that were not considered part of the military.
  
  
• Hitler himself praised the film as being an "incomparable glorification of the power and beauty of our Movement".
  
  
• Leni Riefenstahl directed an earlier film for the NSDAP entitled Der Sieg des Glaubens (1933), which was of an earlier rally, but all known copies of the film were destroyed after Ernst Röhm, who was featured in that film, was suspected of participating in a plot against Hitler and was executed. Rohm was head of the Nazi "brownshirts" and all published references to Rohm were ordered destroyed in an attempt to erase him from history. This film was produced to replace "Der Sieg des Glaubens", and only one complete second-generation copy of that earlier film has ever been found.
  
  
• Riefenstahl had been given carte blanche by Hitler in the making of the film: effectively, the party rally was the first produced-for-camera event. But at the beginning the word hadn't gotten through to officials at the airport and in the parade. Riefenstahl's cameramen were pushed away from the plane carrying Hitler, which is why we see only one out-of-focus shot of Hitler descending from the plane and why the taxiing of the aircraft is repeated and out of sequence. During the parade, a shot of the camera car passing the limo carrying Hitler reveals a dirty look from one of the passengers. Riefenstahl spoke to Hitler at the hotel about the way she'd been snubbed and from then on had no problems.
  
  
• To help her realize her ambitious vision properly, Leni Riefenstahl had new bridges and accesses built specially in Nuremberg's city center. All the camera tracks laid down and lighting gantries erected were all done to her exact specifications.
  
  
• Riefensthal deployed 30 cameras and 120 technicians to film the Nuremberg rallies.
  
  
• The film spent 6 months in the editing suite. The two hours running time represents approximately 3% of the footage Riefenstahl shot.
  
  

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