The Blue Max (1966)

Director:

John Guillermin

Writers:

Jack Hunter (novel)
Ben Barzman (adaptation) ...

Release Date:

21 June 1966 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | War | Action

Tagline:

MIRACLES IN THE AIR!

Plot:

A young pilot in the German air force of 1918, disliked as lower-class and unchivalrous, tries ambitiously to earn the medal offered for 20 kills.

Plot Keywords:

Ambition | Fighter Pilot | Machine Guns | German Soldier | Color In Title

Awards:

Won BAFTA Film Award. Another 4 nominations

Cast

George Peppard	...	Lt. Bruno Stachel
James Mason	...	General Count von Klugermann
Ursula Andress	...	Countess Kaeti von Klugermann
Jeremy Kemp	...	Willi von Klugermann
Karl Michael Vogler	...	Colonel Otto Heidemann
Anton Diffring	...	Holbach
Harry Towb	...	Kettering
Peter Woodthorpe	...	Corporal Rupp
Derek Newark	...	Ziegel
Derren Nesbitt	...	Fabian
Loni von Friedl	...	Elfi Heidemann (as Loni Von Friedl)
Friedrich von Ledebur	...	The Field Marshal (as Friedrich Ledebur)
Carl Schell	...	Von Richthofen aka The Red Baron
Hugo Schuster	...	Hans. Elderly Servant
Alex Scott	...	The Orator

Runtime:

156 min | USA:153 min (FMC Library Print)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

6-Track Stereo | 4-Track Stereo (magnetic prints) (Westrex Recording System) | Mono (optical prints) (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Canada:G (Quebec) | Ireland:12 (old rating) | Germany:12 (DVD rating) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:Unrated | West Germany:16 (f) | Singapore:NC-16 | Iceland:12

Filming Locations:

Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Malcolm Arnold was asked to write the score.

Goofs:

Continuity: The amount of blood on Heidemann's forehead.

Quotes:

Otto Heidemann: Yes, I understand - but I don't agree with killing helpless men!
General Count von Klugermann: Otto, this is 1918 - things have changed. Unrestricted submarine warfare, bombing of civilians, poison gas. Ask your wife - she's a nurse. Ask Elfi about the mustard gas casualties.
Otto Heidemann: So you approve of this kind of ruthlessness!
General Count von Klugermann: We fight to win, Otto.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Monkees: Monkees Race Again (#2.21)" (1968)

I Still Like It

This seemed a very strange choice to broadcast on Remembrance Sunday . If you're foreign let me explain Remembrance Sunday is a day in the British calender where people lay wreaths at their local war memorial and hold a two minute silence in honour of the British war dead who died in the First World War and in conflicts since then . It's an official national event and a very solemn one . Somewhat strange that the BBC broadcast a war film featuring Germans as lead characters !However THE BLUE MAX does contain some bloody sequences of First World War carnage so I guess it was an obvious candidate for broadcast

I first saw this on television in the early 1970s and was impressed with it then . I'm still impressed with it now though with reservations . As several people have pointed out the story drags when the story switches to the adultrous affair between Bruno Stachel and his Baroness lover . It should also be pointed out that George Peppard and Ursula Andress are rather unconvincing in these scenes and seem to be playing characters in a romantic drama set in the 1960s than in the early part of the century . I hated these scenes when I first saw the film and I hate them thirty years later . I also can't help thinking this sub plot makes the movie slightly over long . Was it included to make the movie more marketable to a female audience ? If a movie features thousands of men sticking bayonets into each other no woman will be going to the cinema to watch the movie full stop

That's my only real criticism though there are one or two other flaws regarding historical facts and planes used , but lets look at the positive points . This the best film I've seen featuring First World War dogfights , when you see a movie like ACES HIGH etc it's painfully obvious that actors are sitting in front of some back projection but with the exception of one rather poor scene you can believe the cast are indeed flying their own planes , the arial battles are superb as are the battles on the ground

The cast play up to their characters in thinking they are 20th century knights fighting in an honourable and elitist way and though they're the other side it's impossible to hate them in anyway , and it's interesting to see James Mason playing a morally upstanding army officer in a role almost identical to the one he played in CROSS OF IRON . I guess it doesn't matter whose side your on because politics will win out in the end