"The common people of our country are war weary, restive. They need to be provided with a hero of their own. Von Richthofen, Willi, are of our class. That fellow Stachel, is common as dirt. He's one of them."
In a sense, this is kind of a looked over classic, but I also had real major, problems with it. Set in Germany during the close of World War 1, it follows Bruno Stachel (George Peppard), a peasant who is promoted into the elite German Air Force, where your last name is class enough. To overcome this stigma, Stachel goes about to prove that he will go to any length-honorably or dishonorably, to win his country's most coveted air medal, 'Blue Max.'
Honestly, this is really the first time ever in a film, where I just completely despised the Protagonist of a film Peppard's Stachel is a blood thirsty, ego maniac-psychopath .. Whose own personal ambitions are more important to him, then his fellow comrades, or anything else. The dude has **** for brains.
For example, there is one spectacular sequence in which, Stachel disobeys a direct order, and in that process he nearly loses half of his squadron his response when challenged is. " We shot down seven planes. Three of them are mine." Actually, I would have to say that my favorite character throughout the entire film was the squadron's leader, Otto Heinemann (Karl Michael Vogler) because, he was really the only one who stood up to Stachel .. Secondly, what also made him interesting is that at this same time, he was also experiencing kind of a civil war within himself:
He believed in the concept of chivalry, and didn't like how the entire concept of war had changed to a new ruthlessness, for example: the new weapons that had been discovered, poison gas, etc.
Ursula Andress is the love interest here, as Countess Kaeti von Klugermann. But her character is so laughably one dimensional. For example, there is one scene where Willi, (Jeremy Kemp)her cousin ( who she was also romantically involved with) has just been killed and all she seems to think about is getting it on, with Stachel James Mason is General Count von Klugermann, who also happens to be Kaeti's husband Now how in the hell did that work out? She's obviously been going on behind his back for years, she's like half his age? So. Yeah. Um? The best scenes in the film are obviously the wonderfully filmed flying sequences, probably my favorite is the air-raid one.
In a sense, this is kind of a looked over classic, but I also had real major, problems with it. Set in Germany during the close of World War 1, it follows Bruno Stachel (George Peppard), a peasant who is promoted into the elite German Air Force, where your last name is class enough. To overcome this stigma, Stachel goes about to prove that he will go to any length-honorably or dishonorably, to win his country's most coveted air medal, 'Blue Max.'
Honestly, this is really the first time ever in a film, where I just completely despised the Protagonist of a film Peppard's Stachel is a blood thirsty, ego maniac-psychopath .. Whose own personal ambitions are more important to him, then his fellow comrades, or anything else. The dude has **** for brains.
For example, there is one spectacular sequence in which, Stachel disobeys a direct order, and in that process he nearly loses half of his squadron his response when challenged is. " We shot down seven planes. Three of them are mine." Actually, I would have to say that my favorite character throughout the entire film was the squadron's leader, Otto Heinemann (Karl Michael Vogler) because, he was really the only one who stood up to Stachel .. Secondly, what also made him interesting is that at this same time, he was also experiencing kind of a civil war within himself:
He believed in the concept of chivalry, and didn't like how the entire concept of war had changed to a new ruthlessness, for example: the new weapons that had been discovered, poison gas, etc.
Ursula Andress is the love interest here, as Countess Kaeti von Klugermann. But her character is so laughably one dimensional. For example, there is one scene where Willi, (Jeremy Kemp)her cousin ( who she was also romantically involved with) has just been killed and all she seems to think about is getting it on, with Stachel James Mason is General Count von Klugermann, who also happens to be Kaeti's husband Now how in the hell did that work out? She's obviously been going on behind his back for years, she's like half his age? So. Yeah. Um? The best scenes in the film are obviously the wonderfully filmed flying sequences, probably my favorite is the air-raid one.