Product: Von Richthofen & Brown (2007)
Rating: 4.0
The Flying Circus of Roger Corman
I saw this when it first arrived in the movies in 1971. It was generally ignored back then by audiences tired of the real war in Vietnam but time has marched on and the objections are not as sharp as they once were. It is beautifully filmed and most likely viewed as a "man's picture", with no roles for women other than background props .The musical score by Hugo Friedhofer is excellent and is available on CD if you know where to look. (However, not as great as Goldsmith's "Blue Max" music, which was probably one of the best tunes ever applied to a WW 1 air picture). Now many have spoken of historical problems but it should be said that good situations develop in this work. One of the best is when Don Stroud as Brown walks into the mess and drinks the sour wine that had been left on the table in protest due to his disagreement with toasting the Baron with the chivalry conscious Squadron Commander and Brown's claim that he would drink it when the next pilot is "blown to pieces" by the Baron. The Commander's friend, who had won the Victoria cross was that victim and it makes for effective storyline as Brown convinces the rest of the squadron to abandon the idea of chivalry in war. We also get to see Goering collecting Picasso paintings, a humorous interpretation by the Baron's squadron in painting their planes to obscure their design that led to the famous "Flying Circus" and Henry Fokker introduce the Baron to the Fokker Triplane like a typical car salesman with a sexy woman running her hands along the machine as if we are watching a commercial. Another is when the Allies under Brown attack the German airfield and think they finally have the upper hand but as luck would have it a whole truckload of spare parts arrive for the Baron just after the raid and they put the planes back together in a matter of hours and counterattack the British airfield! We see Von Richthofen as the aristocrat he really was, a young man who transfers hunting in peacetime on his massive estate to "hunting in the air". Also, the fatal flaw of that generation, intent on self destruction due to inability to deal with class change and a willingness to join his former comrades in death. It is a "romanticized" look at the World War 1 Air war. As usual, the allied planes are all SE 5's which makes for boring shots of planes going down continually and the Baron was probably ironically killed by a bullet fired from a trench soldier when he flew too close to the ground in avoiding Brown's pursuit. It should be transferred to DVD and polished so that people can appreciate the scenery that displays the beauty of nature during war to soldier's eyes that was Corman's probable intent.