“Von Richthofen and Brown” was another recent
participant in my Best Dogfighting Movie tournament. It did surprisingly well for a movie that is
not very well known. It was Roger
Corman’s attempt to go beyond his
B-movie / cult movie reputation. He had
a much bigger budget than for films like “Bloody Mama” and Gas-s-s-s”. It was his second war movie after the classic
“The Secret Invasion”. Unfortunately, his
experience in the filming of “Von Richthofen and Brown” resulted in his
directing only two more films in the next 37 years.
The recently arrived Von Richthofen (John Phillip
Law) arrives at his squadron and has a rough landing. He then proceeds to show his mindset by
rushing to take a souvenir from his first kill.
He has trophies made for each subsequent victory. Pilot obsessed with glory – check! Von Richthofen meets the famous Oswald
Boelcke who advises him to come from out of the sun, get in close, don’t waste
ammunition, and only fight if you have an advantage. Soon the Red Baron has ten kills and is fast
becoming a celebrity. Meanwhile, Roy
Brown (Don Stroud) has arrived at his RAF squadron where he makes an immediate
impression by refusing to join in a toast to Von Richthofen. He does not believe in that chivalric bull
shit. He is a modern warrior. “I’m just a technician, I change things. Put a plane in front of me with a man in it –
I change him into a wreck and a corpse.”
He is also a cynic. When asked
“who’s next?”, he responds “we’re all next”.
Somehow Brown bullies his way to leadership and has his squadron hunt in
packs with a plane as bait. These two
main characters are bound to duel. The
Knight of the Air versus the Hunter of the Sky.
The movie is a roller coaster ride of scenes that are
either entertaining or farcical. The
entertaining ones include Von Richthofen’s
encounter with the British ace Hawker and the climactic duel with
Brown. In between we get the Red Baron
crashing in no man’s land so we can get a small-scale fire fight and not one
but two attacks on air fields. This
being a Roger Corman film, there is a truly ludicrous moment when Fokker shows
off his new plane while a hottie caresses it and he speaks in sexual
innuendo! This is a fun movie if you are
in the right mood.
Corman made no claims to historical accuracy and it’s
a good thing he didn’t. In spite of
that, there is a smidgen of accuracy to be found here. The Red Baron did replace Boelcke, but did
not contribute to his death. He did
shoot down Hawker, but not in spite of the Brit motioning that he was out of
ammo. He did collect silver cups and
his combat tactics are pretty close to his philosophy. The script inserts Herman Goring as the
villainous counterpoint to Von Richthofen when actually he did not join the
Flying Circus until after the Baron’s death.
At one point, Goring actually argues that it is okay to strafe nurses
and even “gas them”! On the other hand,
the Brown character is almost totally fictional. He was not in the RAF. He was in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Instead of being a jerk, he was a
well-respected squadron commander who insisted his charges be well-trained
before seeing combat. As far as the
final duel, the movie basically sticks to the official version that credits
Brown with the death of the Red Baron.
Most authorities feel Von Richthofen was actually killed by a bullet
from an Australian anti-aircraft gun. It
is not surprising that the movie does not show that version.
It is hard to get a hold on this movie. “Directed by Roger Corman” sends a signal
that the movie should be inferior to most war movies. However, VR&B is definitely not your
typical Corman movie. It was a labor of
love for him and he went all out on it with a much larger budget than he had
ever had before. This started with the
purchasing of most of the aircraft used in “The Blue Max”. VR&B used twelve planes including replica
Pfalz DIIIs, S.E. 5s, Fokker D.VIIs, and
Fokker Dr.Is. It’s a very nice line-up
for a glorified B-movie like this. The
planes do not just sit at the airfield.
The movie has a large amount of dogfighting in it – 24 minutes. That quantity is the most of any of the
sixteen movies in the dogfighting tournament.
The quality is fairly high. There
are fine acrobatics by the stunt pilots, one of whom was killed. Stroud and Law learned the rudiments of flying
and they were filmed in the back seats as though flying. Unfortunately, although the cinematography is
well done, it is repetitive. We get a
lot of pilot’s faces, guns firing, and the use of smoke trails to indicate a
plane has lost the battle.
While the film deserves an A for effort and a B for
dogfighting, it is inferior in all other areas.
The acting is wooden from the B-list cast. Law was a poor choice for Von Richthofen, but
Stroud does bring charisma to his role.
Still, we are talking about Don Stroud here. The actors are not helped by the dialogue
which is stilted and pious. They are
also placed in some ridiculous scenarios like the German attack on the British
airfield while they are celebrating their attack on the German air field. It does result in numerous cool explosions
(from fighter planes bereft of bombs).
Does it crack the 100 Best War Movies of all
time? No way, but it is a nice time
waster if you don’t invest any brain cells in it. Make sure you do not watch it to get the true
story of the death of the Red Baron.
GRADE = C+
