I did. I saw something a couple days ago that reminded me of the movie, and thought it would be worth the time to seek it out. We must have some credit with Amazon, because it was free to me on Prime. I find myself in agreement with critics, the flying sequences are great. They’re well done, superbly filmed and fun to watch. The scenes on the ground, a bit plodding. Ursela Andress just a few years after she appeared with Sean Connery in Dr. No. The great James Mason, and the one character I found rather likable, Karl Michael Vogler as the squadron commander. A bit confusing to me, he’s referred to as “Colonel Otto Heidemann.” I don’t know much German, but he’s addressed as “Hauptman” in the movie, and that’s Captain. Colonel should be “Oberst” and I never heard that once.

I thought they did a great job with the airplanes. The Fokker D-7s and Dr 1 were replicas, that looked good to me, more knowledgeable aviation experts criticized the engines, but the movie was made 48 years after the end of the War. British SE 5s were portrayed by Slingsby T.56s. There were a few actual Pfalz D.IIIs in the movie. I thought they did a good job. One criticism was that the machine gun had no belts or magazine feeds, no casings ejected, just twinkling muzzle flashes.

George Peppard played the protagonist, Leutnant Bruno Stachel. He was terrific as an amoral German fighter pilot seeking “The Blue Max” awarded to pilots who achieve 20 victories. You can’t really root for him, he’s an asshole. None of the characters are particularly likable, with the possible exception of Heinemann.

If you’ve never seen it, or if it’s been a long time, should you pay to watch it? Yeah, ultimately the storyline is good, the acting very good, the flying outstanding, and it’s cheap to rent.

"...and let's see some real flying."

Willi von Klugermann: Hmm, a pretty medal, The Blue Max.
Bruno Stachel: It's the only one worth having. People respect it.
Willi von Klugermann: The medal or the man?

Saw it many many years ago; the opening music/theme was very haunting and stayed with me along time; eventually picked up the soundtrack just for that. The score was by Jerry Goldsmith.

The Blue Max was a fascinating medal; pictures of original real ones show them to be beautiful. Interestingly, the "Pour Le Merit" was given out from 1740-1918 (the military class one); it was not used in WW2, but one can see pics of various top Nazis wearing one, which they obtained during WW1 service.

Funny you bring this up, just watched it the other day, remember seeing it in the movies when I was a kid. There were ejecting shells when Pepard was firing in some scenes but no belts of ammo. I'm a pilot and aviation enthusiast, thought it was well done, especially the flying scenes. Sure the rotary engines were not correct but I'm sure they wee more reliable. The plot was a little thick at times but it all came together at the end... I give it an A..

60

quote:

Originally posted by Sacramento Johnson:
Saw it many many years ago; the opening music/theme was very haunting and stayed with me along time; eventually picked up the soundtrack just for that. The score was by Jerry Goldsmith.

One of the best movie scores of all time. A few years ago, a rerecording was done with the City of Prague Philharmonic that sounds amazing.

Thanks, Dan, that was great!

quote:

Originally posted by Sacramento Johnson:

it was not used in WW2, but one can see pics of various top Nazis wearing one, which they obtained during WW1 service.

Erwin Rommel was one of them.

My wife and I started watching this one a couple years ago. We like WW1 aviation, with our favorite flick being The Dawn Patrol. Flyboys is another that's worth a look, though I wonder at it's accuracy; when I say I am a WW1 aviation fan, I do not mean I am a WW1 aviation scholar.

Anyway, we didn't finish The Blue Max; we probably didn't even make it halfway through. We found the romance side of it tiring. Sounds like we need to try again, or just skip to the flying scenes.

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
Anyway, we didn't finish The Blue Max; we probably didn't even make it halfway through. We found the romance side of it tiring. Sounds like we need to try again, or just skip to the flying scenes.

The Blue Max is a little bit like Heat where at the beginning you're wondering why they're bothering with side plots until you get closer to the end and realize, "Oh, that's where they're going."

That makes sense. I like Heat. I guess I just find the romances more tolerable in some contexts more than others. Flyboys has a romance in it too, and I found it a little easier to tolerate.

I can tell you it pays off in the end, but whether you think it's worth it is something I can't answer, but it's a perfect end for a character that doesn't exist in history when someone of his skill level would be useful in the war effort.

It totally pays off in the final scene. The look on Ursula Andress' face....

Ursula is always good.

I watched that dozens of times in the 1990s. It was a really good movie, IMO.

Yeah, Bruno Stachel (Peppard) was an A-hole, but he had good reason to be, honestly. He was also sympathetic. As he was riding to the unit, they passed a group of grunts. Stachel chucked his bottle of Asbach Uralt brandy at the nearest grunt. The driver said "That was a full bottle, Herr Leutnant", meaning he was surprised that a pilot would give a crap about lowly grunts.

Stachel was the son of a working man in a unit full of elitist a-holes that mocked him for his poverty. He came from the infantry whereas the others were playboy flyers living in French chateaus drinking fine wines talking about their rich family members. He was never given a fair chance at fitting in with the unit, so he stopped trying. When he finally got a first confirmed kill, everybody acted like he committed a war crime in doing so (the audience knows he did not, but it looked that way to the rest of the squadron on the ground), further alienating him from the rest of the group.

Now, his ego took over, and he became obsessed with winning the Blue Max. He ended up trapping himself in a lie about two kill credits, which led him to serious problems in the ending of the movie.

I am a nerd and I care more about nitnoid details about antique aircraft than anybody else I know, but I honestly don't care about the engines or ammo belts. I mean, who really cares if they had radial instead of rotary engines? The replicas were really well done (especially the Triplanes and DVIIs), and even today there aren't that many radial engine fighters flying. No ammo belts? I honestly never noticed. Considering this was filmed in the 1960s, I think they did an OUTSTANDING job. I mean, they had some BAD crappy movies back then.

The story was good, which is what mattered to me.


I finally got around to reading the book, which wasn't nearly as good as the movie (IMO, again). They really changed things around, and this is one of the rare instances I can think of where the movie was better than the book.

The Civil version of this award still lives today. It was created in 1842 by King William IV of Prussia for Excellence (merit) in Science and Art. Einstein got one in 1923, Verdi in 1897.

This is one of my favorite movies and if I'm flipping around and find it, everything stops. I get irritated when I find out it's showing at 3am.

I found it somehow humorous that Harry Towb played Kettering (German) and then a few years later played a cook (American) in Patton.

OF course, how can you not like a movie with Ursula Andress?