#Blue max full movie how to#
#Blue max full movie series#

The Blue Max takes a decidedly less romantic view of warfare than the old movies with gallant fliers wearing long scarves and goggles. In 1966 most Americans' knowledge of WW1 flying aces was restricted to the adventures of Snoopy the Dog's efforts to shoot down the Red Baron in the comic strips. Although Stachel's ruthlessness disgusts his superior Otto Heidemann (Karl Michael Vogler), nothing can keep the pilot's career from soaring. The General encourages Kaeti's philandering, and sees in Stachel a propaganda poster boy for the average German, to help steer the country away from Bolshevism. Their competition sharpens when both vie for the attentions of Willi's aunt - Countess Kaeti (Ursula Andress), the notorious wife of General Count von Klugermann (James Mason). Experienced pilot Willi von Klugermann (Jeremy Kemp) takes a liking to him, despite Stachel's disdain for the chivalric rules of combat. Low born Bruno Stachel (George Peppard) transfers from the German infantry to the air corps and finds that he is the only commoner in his squadron. The film finds ways to make a rather grim story exciting, suspenseful and even sexy.

Blacklistee Ben Barzman contributed to the screenplay, while the main producer Elmo Williams would move on to Fox's even bigger historical war reconstruction Tora! Tora! Tora! Its tale of the first air aces has been updated from the old Errol Flynn and Howard Hawks 'Dawn Patrol' formula with a cynical attitude toward the 'chivalrous' image of the glorious flying aces, in this case Germans hoping to survive long enough to earn the highest military honor the Kaiser can bestow, a blue and white medal. The Blue Max is a rousing WW1 aviation epic filmed on a lavish scale in Ireland with an English and American crew. It's a different experience when we know that real people were there, gambling that their effort will pay off in an impressive shot.

#Blue max full movie how to#

Watching a film from the '60s, what we see is what we get - if the producer wants a squadron of aircraft flying in formation on a dawn raid over France, he has to find or build the planes, secure and train the pilots, figure out how to film them plane-to-plane, and then hope that the weather cooperates with his shooting schedule. Today we never know if our dashing heroes are only being filmed on a green screen stage, and then inserted into images created on a digital level. Although great work is being done as well, fans are beginning to look back at the critically ignored but lovingly filmed action and war films of the 1950s and '60s with a greater appreciation. Modern genre movies can spend millions on unlimited special effects yet wind up as unimpressive exercises in digital manipulation.

#Blue max full movie series#

Consequently, Bruno takes flight before a huge crowd and does a spectacular series of air maneuvers before the plane breaks apart in mid-air. The count, unwilling to permit the hero to be disgraced, deliberately permits Bruno to test a new plane he knows to be faulty. In revenge, Kaeti exposes his false claims at the same moment a court-martial is ordered to investigate Willi's death and other instances of Bruno's disregard for human life. Now eligible for the Blue Max, Bruno refuses to leave the country with Kaeti though he is certain of Germany's eventual defeat. The calculating Bruno not only takes Kaeti for himself but also maneuvers his rival into a fatal crash and then claims two of Willi's kills as his own. Competing with Bruno for top flying honors is the count's nephew, Willi, who is having an affair with his uncle's wife, Kaeti. When he captures a British observation plane and coldbloodedly shoots it down in order to score a 'kill,' his action wins the approval of high-ranking Count von Klugermann, who openly applauds the will to win at any cost. Toward the end of World War I, a newly-trained German fighter pilot, Bruno Stachel, becomes unpopular with his fellow pilots because of his determination to win the Blue Max, an award given to German pilots who shoot down 20 enemy planes.