The Austrian version of "Die Rache der Berge" differs from the generally available American version in several aspects, including its length and language of intertitles. The American version is only 1,883 metres long, while the Austrian version is 2,045 metres. The intertitles are also different, with the American version being shorter and using a different language.
Despite initially assuming that these differences were due to the varying length of the intertitles, direct comparison has shown that both the montage and individual scene durations differ between the two versions. The Austrian version was re-released by Universal Pictures in 1924, which resulted in a version that was 1,365 feet (416 metres) shorter than the original premiere version. This difference translates to a time difference of 20 minutes.
Titles were altered, snippets of action were removed, and at least one major scene was taken out entirely, specifically the visit by von Steuben and Margaret to a small local chapel. According to Richard Koszarski, the original negative of the film was destroyed sometime between 1956 and 1961, making it irretrievably lost.
Koszarski also notes that the copy of the film can be dated to the period between the summer of 1921 and the winter of 1922. Furthermore, it is about 200 metres longer than the US version of 1924. If Koszarski's details are accurate, then the Austrian version lies almost exactly in the middle between the lost version shown at the premiere and the re-released one.
A large part of the additional length of the film can be traced to cuts made to the 1924 version in almost every shot. Koszarski describes how the beginning and end of scenes were trimmed, in order to "speed up" the film. However, more exciting was the discovery that the Austrian version contains shots that are missing in the American one - shots/countershots, intertitles - and furthermore shows differences in its montage (i.e. the placing of the individual shots within a sequence). All this indicates that Die Rache der Berge constitutes the oldest and most completely preserved material of the film.
