The targeted-at-Nazis parody of "The Lambeth Walk" (a British dance that had been popular in swing clubs in Germany which the Nazis denounced as "Jewish mischief and animalistic hopping") so enraged Joseph Goebbels that reportedly he ran out of the screening room kicking chairs and screaming profanities. The propaganda film was distributed uncredited to newsreel companies, who would supply their own narration. Charlie Chaplin's satire The Great Dictator (1940) was inspired in large part by Triumph of the Will. Frank Capra used significant footage, with a mocking narration in the first installment of the propagandistic film produced by the United States Army Why We Fight as an exposure of Nazi militarism and totalitarianism to American soldiers and sailors. Copyright Germany Riefenstahl filed lawsuits against two postwar documentaries which had incorporated footage of Triumph of the Will. The first lawsuit occurred in 1954 against Wolfgang Hartwig, producer of Bis fünf nach zwölf. Hartwig argued that the rights belonged to the state, but reportedly eventually paid compensation to Riefenstahl, who donated it to a charity dedicated to returning prisoners of war. Her second lawsuit against Swedish producer Erwin Leiser's Mein Kampf in 1960 was enveloped in greater public debate about the copyright and morality of works produced during the Nazi regime. The case was settled against her in 1969. In a judgement by the Federal Court of Justice on 29 December 1966, the copyright to the film was transferred to the Federal Republic of Germany as the legal successor of Nazi Germany. These rights are administered by the federally owned Transit-Film GmbH based in Munich, although it was contractually regulated in 1974 that any public screening until 2004 had to be approved by Riefenstahl and that she received 70% of all revenues. United States In 1996, the copyrights of the film were restored to Riefenstahl under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, although some aspect of the US copyrights are uncertain. See also The Birth of a Nation (1915 American film), which inspired the "second" KKK's formation List of German films of 1933–1945 Nazism and cinema Notes References Works cited Further reading Shirer, William. Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934–1941. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1941. Includes a contemporary account of the 1934 Nuremberg rally. (Complete screenplay.) External links Das Blaue Licht: Triumph des Willens (1935), the original Riefenstahl website Screenplay of Triumph of the Will, DasBlaueLicht.net Hinter den Kulissen