The Blue Max [VHS] (1966)

Filmed in Ireland (which explains the somewhat puzzling absence of trenches and mud in many of the aerial dogfighting shots, and the even more puzzling sight of the Irish parliament building in Dublin, a city masquerading as Berlin), this film is interesting in that the First World War's Western Front is merely the backdrop to a story surrounding a man who finds himself fighting not just the enemy (the British in this case), but fighting the attitudes of his fellow aviators.

Bruno Stachel (ably played by George Peppard) is a man who intends to climb not just out of the trenches but into the air, but also in terms of his social status as he does anything he believes appropriate in order to win the so-called "Blue Max", the highest medal the Germans awarded for gallantry until 1918. While his commanding officer, Otto Heidemann (Karl Michael Vogler) detests what he perceives as a low-lifer who totally disregards "how the upper class does things", the Countess von Klugermann (Ursula Andress) finds this man somewhat fascinating purely because she wants something different and wants to know what makes Stachel tick.

It is somewhat puzzling as to why her husband, the General (James Mason), and her nephew, Willi (Jeremy Kemp), do or say nothing to chase away this upstart from this upper-crust man-chaser, yet undoubtedly, in the absence of the actual fighting at the front, the sub-plots needed to work, interwoven as they are with the main plot involving Willi himself, who wins the medal after destroying 20 enemy aircraft. Stachel's ambitions are spurred when Willi is awarded the medal, though he is somewhat shaken after his rival (and, dare I say it, friend) accidentally ends up crashing into a lone chimney stack and killing himself after a reckless stunt to prove who was better at flying aeroplanes.

His commanding officer's prejudice is well maintained (kudos to Vogler) and is unremitting even when he demands that the general have Stachel court-martialled for disobeying orders, only for the latter to refuse outright - the man was now a hero to the common people, something that the general had planned once he realised Stachel's abilities. Heidemann then realises that the war did not revolve around individuals and that what had been certain and applicable before was not necessarily applicable now. He is therefore forced to back down.

Yet a white lie by Stachel, who rejects a fiery Countess's advances, landed him unknowingly in a predicament that he remains totally unaware of. Given the ending (which is different to that in Jack Hunter's original novel, but which I won't reveal here), it reveals that just as people are prepared to put them up on pedestals, so the same people are prepared to drag them down in as shocking a way as possible.

This is a well-done movie about the human psyche in time of war, not a collective psyche as seen in many American war movies like "Platoon" and "Full Metal Jacket", but of an individual who stands out and makes his mark by bucking the trend as very much a non-conformist who does things his way and doesn't care who knows it or who objects to it. Peppard does an excellent job, even though, back in 1966, he was not a star and was surrounded by star actors like Mason and Andress (who'd been in THAT bikini just a few years before when Connery popped up). Like "Battle of Britain", filmed over England in 1968, the aerial sequences are spectacular and well done but they remain strictly secondary and do not overpower the plot.

Personally, I would have liked the film to explore more of Stachel's personality - about what really drove a working-class man to reach new heights in the face of a social class whose way of thinking and acting was totally alien and anathema to him. His involvement with the Countess seemed also a bizarre sub-plot, but, as in "Zeppelin" (1971), her involvement was merely to serve as a (female) distraction in a male-dominated society that would change irretrievably after the fall of Imperial Germany in 1918.

If you compare the film to the original book they are quite different in many respects. In the book the ruthless ambition of the central character, Bruno Stachel (a pilot in the German Army Air Service) enables him to survive the war while 'better' men are destroyed and, it is implied, that Stachel finds his thoughts and talents perfectly in tune with those of a nascent Nazi leader. The Stachel of the film is killed in the final scene - his ambition destroys him in the end and it is the good men who survive. Perhaps in the 1960s the film world could not quite accept an ending which implied that evil might well triumph after all. George Peppard's Stachel is not quite as successful nor as hard as his model in the written work but Peppard does portray, quite well, this young man's use of the officer corps of the German Army Air Service and his (dishonestly secured) fame as a fighter pilot as a means of escaping from lower middle class mediocrity.

That said this is one of those 'good' flying pictures. OK, we know that some of the aircraft used were Tiger Moths and Stampes painted accordingly though to be fair the film also arranged for replica Fokker DrIs (the famous 'Triplane'), Pfalz DIIIs and Fokker DVIIs to be built especially and they add some solid authenticity (on the other hand, the a/c are camouflaged in schemes that they never wore in service for greater dramatic effect). Nevertheless there are moments in the flying sequences when the camera (and Peppard to be fair) does capture those occassions when (to those of us who love flying) flight can be pure joy.

The very beginning of the picture when Stachel, as an infantryman of the German Army in the trenches of 1916 looks up to see two aircraft dogfighting (and is entranced by the 'silver' spectacle which contrasts with the mud and ooze of his existence), over which Jerry Goldsmith's terrific theme music is slowly introduced, is certainly one of my favourite film moments.

Very much Room at the Top with biplanes and battlefields instead of bedsits and boardrooms, The Blue Max follows the progress of Bruno Stachel (George Peppard), a former German infantryman who sees becoming an air ace as a means of climbing out of the trenches and up the social ladder. While aristocratic general James Mason uses him to provide the demoralised working class with a hero of their own and the general's wife (Ursula Andress, modelling a line of gravity-defying towels evidently superglued to her nipples) uses him to pass the time, his desire to win the Blue Max, the highest award Germany can give, to prove that he is as good as his condescending, socially superior comrades sets him at odds with Karl Michael Vogler's squadron commander, who simply wants to fight the war with chivalry, and Jeremy Kemp's famous ace.

This is one of those films that should be great but never quite makes it. Part of the problem is the watering down of Jack D. Hunter's original novel, which saw Stachel and his buddy Hermann go on to form Hitler's Luftwaffe, a more convincing conclusion to the class warfare and erosion of aristocratic values that the one the film offers in its place. Similarly Jerry's Goldsmith's beautiful and justly celebrated score found itself equally watered down, with many of his most ambitious and powerful cues either left unused or heavily abridged to fit in more plays of his soaring and euphoric main title (the full score has since been restored on CD, and it's an interesting experiment to play the unused cues alongside the film). Hopefully someday Fox might get round to a special edition with the option to hear the full score as originally intended.

Although one of the few films from the Sixties where when a plane crashes it doesn't go over a hill to do it, it suffers in comparison to silent classic Wings both from its back projection - it's dogfights never quite have the terror or adrenaline rush to push them that extra yard - and its lack of that film's real emotional power. Peppard still displays the early promise that was never quite fulfilled as the charismatic but utterly ruthless working-class obsessive, striking a nice balance between defensive vulnerability in his early scenes and unbridled ambition in his latter ones, but he is more a character you understand than sympathise with.

John Guillermin's direction is certainly ambitious with a striking use of the camera and a particularly effective use of tracking shots, though some of the tilted angles and overhead shots can make it seem a little Ipcress File at times. Yet if never entirely successful, there is still a lot to recommend it. It retains its schoolboy appeal without insulting the intelligence, is superbly designed and holds the interest throughout, while Skeets Kelly's aerial work is often astounding. And when its ambitions are occasionally realised, such as the bombing of an infantry column or a mass attack, it's strikingly effective.

Although the current release of the film is barebones - just the film's original trailer - it does restore the ten minutes of cuts from the widescreen video release, which omitted the entire attack sequence that saw Stachel saving the Red Baron's life and earning The Blue Max!