100 BEST WAR MOVIES: 12. Paths of Glory (1957)

 First, let me point out that noone is perfect, but at least I caught it after I had posted the #1 movie. I would hope if I had gotten to #1 without this movie making the 100 best list, people would have thought I was nuts.

 “Paths of Glory” was Stanley Kubrick’s first great film.  The fact that he also directed “Spartacus”, “Dr. Strangelove”, “Full Metal Jacket” makes a case for his being the greatest war movie director.  The movie was based on the novel by Howard Cobb which was published in 1935.  The teenage Kubrick had read the book in his father’s study.  Kubrick had trouble getting funding because of the depressing nature of the plot.  This problem was solved when Kirk Douglas was brought on board.  His production company took on the task and Douglas was paid 1/3 of the approximately $1 million budget.  He was not in it for the money as Douglas was committed to the project in principle.  The movie was a critical smash, but only a modest success at the box office and predictably did not do well in Europe.  In fact, it was banned in France for two decades.  Incredibly, the movie received zero Academy Award nominations and is not on AFI’s 100 Greatest Movies list!

 The movie is set on the Western Front in France in 1916.  A narrator summarizes the futility of the war up to that point.  It is a stalemate.  French Army Chief of Staff Gen. Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) visits Gen. Mireau (George MacReady) at his chateau.  Broulard orders an attack on an impregnable German position called the “Ant Hill”.  Mireau is at first against the insane, suicidal assault, but Broulard uses flattery and promotion bribery to bring him around.  He does not have to remind MacReady that he will be safely witnessing the attack from a bunker. Mireau visits the sacrificial unit to give the order to Col. Dax (Douglas). Dax is appalled at the senseless order, but Mireau assures Dax there will be only 60% casualties! He threatens to remove Dax and the colonel backs down. The attack fails, of course. Due to cowardice insists Mireau. Instead of punishing the whole unit, he agrees to only court-martial three soldiers. Dax acts as their defense attorney in the trial.

ACTING:   A+                

ACTION:   A+ (6/10) it has two great combat scenes, but it is mostly a courtroom drama

ACCURACY: N/A      

PLOT:  A               

REALISM:    B it’s bit over the top

CINEMATOGRAPHY:   A+

SCORE:   A

SCENE:  the attack across no man’s land

QUOTE:  Gen. Broulard:  Colonel, troops are like children. Just as a child wants his father to be firm, troops crave discipline. One way to maintain discipline is to shoot a man now and then.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  Howard Cobb was inspired by a newspaper story about an incident in the war where four French poilu were executed for unit cowardice.  After the war, their families sued and two families were rewarded one franc each and the other two got nothing.  It was not uncommon in the French army and others (not including the American army) to execute men to strengthen the will of others.  The scenario in the movie is only indirectly related to the famous mutinies by French soldiers in the war.  The refusal to follow orders to continue wasteful attacks occurred wholesale in the army in 1917 after Nivelle's Chemins des Dames offensive to win the war came far short of the optimistic palaver fed to the troops.  There were some executions initiated by Petain as part of his otherwise empathetic diffusing of the situation.  It is safe to assume that among the 10% of men who were court-martialed and executed, there were undoubtedly some who did not deserve death.  The French government would have agreed with Mireau that the tonic might be harsh for a few, but effective for the masses. 

CRITIQUE:  This was only Kubrick’s fourth film, but you can clearly see the style that made him one of the great directors.  The cinematography by Georg Krause is magnificent.  “Bridge on the River Kwai” took that Oscar, but you could argue that “Paths to Glory” is superior and certainly deserved a nomination.  Speaking of which, although it could be argued that “Bridge” is the overall better film, no one in their right mind would say today that the nominees “Peyton Place”, “Sayanora”, “Witness for the Prosecution”, and “Twelve Angry Men” were more deserving than “Paths”.  Especially those first two!  The movie is famous among film buffs for the long tracking shots (especially the battle scene) and Kubrick’s abrupt cuts.  He is not big on fades in this movie.  The interior scenes with their baroque mise en scenes and the deep focusing are a clinic.  We also get a lot of off-centered shots.  Disconcerting to modern war movie lovers, the film lacks the frenetic cutting used to add to the fog of war.  In “Paths of Glory”, you know what is going on during a battle.  You are not lost or confused.

 The musical score is sparse, but Gerald Fried (who went on to score “Gilligan’s Island”!) encouraged the use of snare drums in war movies.  The closing song was of Napoleonic vintage and ends with the lines:  “Oh please Mother, bring a light /  My sweetheart is going to die”.  Coincidentally, Louis Armstrong had a hit with a version of it one year before the movie was released.

The acting is outstanding.  Douglas is his usual charismatic self, even more so because he was passionate about the project.  His Dax is one of the great anti-authority figures in war movie history and ahead of his time in the genre.  He runs the gamut of that stereotype.  Sarcasm, slow-burns, seething, and finally snapping.  The supporting cast is not intimidated.  MacReady and Menjou are all-time slimy.  Morris (who was a highly decorated ace in WWII) creates one of the great cowards in war movie history.  Ralph Meeker does his best work in an underrated career.  The most fascinating character is Ferol.  The eccentric Carey plays him to the hilt and his scene-stealing aggravated the rest of the cast. He gets one of the great lines in war movie history. After Paris ruminates about how a cockroach has a better future than him, resulting in Ferol smashing it and deadpanning:  “Now you have the edge on him.”  For instance, when he is being led by the Father to the execution and he bites into his arm - that was unscripted and almost got him punched in the face by the bemused Emile Meyer.  Carey was fired towards the end of the 64 day shoot and a double had to be used for the confession scene. 

The movie is not subtle in its themes.  It is an anti-war movie, but it is more appropriately labeled as an anti-command movie.  The battle scene is certainly horrific, but it is only seven minutes and no major character is killed.  The real focus of the plot is the machinations of the generals.  Broulard and Mireau are loathsome, but fairly representative of high command in the war.  Obviously, French high command in particular (Broulard resembles Joffre), but all of the belligerents in general.  It is no secret that the tactics used in the war were pigheaded, but the script enlightens about the use of court-martials to “motivate” the common soldiers.  A related theme is the dominance of the officer class over the enlisted.  Not only are most officers motivated by promotion (as opposed to the poilu just trying to survive), they use their position to wriggle out of culpability.  The only caveat I have with the themes is the ending cantina scene tends to dilute them.  The movie would have been better served ending with the executions.  However, considering the rumors that Douglas had to prevent Kubrick from giving the men a reprieve, it could have been much worse.  Having a tearful singalong by the cannon fodder signals that war goes on.  By the way, contrast the songs at the end of “Paths of Glory” and “Full Metal Jacket”.  ‘Nuff said.  The songs have a similar vibe, though.

How realistic is it in military matters?  The trenches are a little too wide, but that was to facilitate those awesome tracking shots, so all is forgiven on that score.  The night patrol seems typical, although fratricide by a cowardly leader was uncommon.  The main battle sequence is so well done that I showed it in my American History class to prepare my students for their letter from a soldier at the front assignment.  (The other clips are from “All Quiet”, “Sergeant York”, and “The Lost Battalion”.) It took 60 men, eight cranes, and three weeks to turn a German farm into the scarred landscape of trench warfare. Special kudos to the German police officers who were the extras and did some of the best dying in a war movie. The sound effects bear mentioning.  The whining of the artillery shells and the resulting explosions add to the impression of Hell on Earth.

CONCLUSION:  “Paths of Glory” is one of the great war movies and definitely belongs in the top twenty.  It sets out to make an impression and it succeeds perfectly.  Kubrick plus Douglas is a winning combination, as seen in “Spartacus”.  It is more court room and behind the scenes oriented than most war movies, but it does have one of the great combat scenes to balance that. 

THE 100 BEST WAR MOVIES: 9. (tie) All Quiet… (1930)

 

The first great anti-war film was based on the greatest anti-war novel ever written.  Lewis Milestone took on the task of bringing Erich Remarque’s book to the screen and even considered casting Remarque as Paul Baumer.  Lew Ayres won the role and was so affected by it that he became a pacifist and jeopardized his career by claiming conscientious objector status in WWII.  His brave service as a medic helped regain much good will from the public.  Milestone had learned filmmaking in the Signal Corps during WWI.  He knew what war looked like from editing war footage.  He recreated no man’s land on a ranch in California.  Shell holes were blasted with dynamite and then filled with muddy rain water.  A French village was built on a back lot and included a canal that was dug for the swimming scene.  Twenty tons of black powder and ten tons of dynamite were used for the battle scenes.  One explosion resulted in Milestone being hit by debris and knocked unconscious.  2,000 extras were found in California by requesting help from American Legion posts.  The US Army could not provide soldiers because American doughboys could not appear in foreign uniforms on film.  The 99-day shoot was double the planned 48.  The $.9 million budget boomed to $1.4 million.  It paid off as the movie was a smashing success and won the Best Picture Oscar.  Milestone won Best Director and the film was nominated for Writing and Cinematography.  It was ranked #54 on AFIs original list of the 100 greatest movies, but did not make the revised list issued in 2007!  It was not a smashing success in Nazi Germany, a country Remarque had been forced to flee for his life from.  At its premiere, Goebbels had the Brown Shirts release mice, stink bombs, and sneezing powder to clear the theater.  The movie was pulled after a week and not shown again in Germany until 1952 ( the year Remarque returned to his homeland ).

The movie begins with a title card:  “This story is neither an accusation nor a confession and least of all not an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it.  It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war…”  (This is the opening to the book and previews the fact that the movie follows the book closely.)  It seems to be an adventure as the opening scene has enthusiastic soldiers march through a German town to cheers from the populace.  In a high school classroom, Kantorek (Arnold Lucy) harangues his charges about their duty to the Fatherland.  They are “the iron men of Germany, the gay heroes who will repulse the enemy…”  The camera pans to the boys’ faces as each imagines what enlistment will mean.  Peer pressure and the band wagon effect have the boys enlisting en masse. 

The movie takes the young men through boot camp where they are terrorized by a civilian turned drill sergeant named Himmelstoss. After graduating, it’s a trip to the front line where they make friends with some veterans including the scrounger Kat. The core group represent various types of soldiers (not specifically German soldiers). Paul is the intellectual. He and his classmates will become disillusioned as they learn what war is really like.

The movie covers several of the most memorable passages in the book. These include the stuck in the bunker during a long bombardment, the tryst with the French mademoiselles, Paul’s stay in the hospital, Paul with the wounded French soldier in the shell crater. There are charming scenes where the men discuss the war. There is a battle that is one of the best in any war movie and it still holds up today. To contrast that, Milestone includes a sequence where Paul returns home to find civilians are clueless about the war. Through all this the group of friends gets whittled down. The movie does not pull any punches. War is hell.

ACTING:   C                

ACTION:   A (8/10)

ACCURACY: N/A      

PLOT:  A+                

REALISM:   A 

CINEMATOGRAPHY:   A+

SCORE:   none

SCENE:  the big battle

QUOTE:  Paul [to a class of high schoolers] You still think it's beautiful to die for your country. The first bombardment taught us better. When it comes to dying for country, it's better not to die at all.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  Obviously “All Quiet” is not a true story.  However, Remarque was a German infantryman during the Great War and all of the incidents in the film are realistic and most were probably based on incidents in Remarque’s experiences.  The film has a great deal of verisimilitude. 

               The opening public enthusiasm is appropriate for people who had not had a dose of Hell since the Franco-Prussian War thirty years earlier.  The way young men were manipulated by the authorities to go to war is a major theme.  (It is important to note that if the script had been reversed and the boys were Americans, the movie never would have been made.) But the plot would fit British or French troops. The training scenes are realistic, if softened.  The Himmelstoss of the book is harsher and closer to the Prussian style. The dynamic between the new replacements and the hardened veterans is appropriate and could be from any war and any country (and any war movie).

               You can learn a lot about soldier life in WWI from this movie.  The movie is especially strong in its depiction of soldier camaraderie.  The bonds are forged in the furnace of the trenches.  The film throws in numerous details of the hardships the soldiers endured.  It hits many of the “lacks”:  food, female companionship,  sleep, hygiene  

               The wiring detail is a nice touch and reenacts a common WWI duty that is seldom depicted.  The dugout bombardment scene is well done and gets the claustrophobia and stress right.  The movie only implies that this situation could last for up to a week and it is not surprising that some of the new soldiers cracked.  As far as the rat assault, this is an effective cameo from a creature that was a major nuisance in the trenches.  Speaking of critters, there is an appearance by the ubiquitous lice.

               One could carp a bit about the rather too pristine hospital scene with the amputee Kimmerich, but the reality of wound mortality is accurate.  The combat set pieces are the highlights of the film.  Although understandably truncated, you can not ask for a more accurate depiction of the insanity of trench warfare.  Where “Paths of Glory” showed the suicidal nature of many attacks, “All Quiet” concentrates on the attack/counterattack nature of the tactics.  The audience is left to wonder what was the purpose of attacks that did not change the situation and yet resulted in terrible casualties. 

               Just as important is how Paul’s return home reflects the detachment of the populace from the realities of the war.  Paul is your typical soldier who finds his home to be a surrealistic reflection of a bygone life that he has trouble remembering ever existed.  It seems he is more comfortable in the dugout with his new family.   The mattress in Paul’s bedroom is too soft.  The butterfly collection seems childish.  The old men, representing the powers that shipped the “iron youth” off to war, are clueless about the actual status of the war.  Just like in every war before and since.

CRITIQUE:  “All Quiet” is a technical marvel and Milestone belongs on the Mount Rushmore of war movie directors just for this movie alone.  (He also made “A Walk in the Sun” and “Pork Chop Hill”.)  It is the kind of film where you notice the cinematographic flourishes in a positive way. Milestone has a penchant for framing scenes through doorways and windows.  This tends to detach the audience or the main characters from the exterior events.  This is apparent from the opening scene where we see the parade through a doorway and then we transition to Kantorek’s class as the parade passes by.  Milestone then has the fired-up boys marching out to join the war.  The battle scenes include a variety of shots.  There is a magnificent panning shot over the trench intercut with views of no man’s land.  We even get some POV which was rare for films from that era.  The interplay of the machine gun mowing down the wave of French does a chilling job of depicting modern mechanized warfare. The most commendable aspect of the combat scenes is the sound effects.  For a movie in the transitional stage from silent to sound, it is amazing how they got the sound of the explosions so indelibly real.  The sets also bear lauding.  No man’s land looks appropriately hellish.  The village built for the movie is perfect.  The dugout shows a real attention to mise en scene.  The enormous $1.4 million budget was well spent.  By the way, none of the budget was spent on a soundtrack as Milestone felt it would trivialize the plot.  The lack of the usual sappy, prod-your-emotions score of most black and white movies is a big plus.

               The main flaw in the movie and the main reason why I had disappointing results from showing it to students is the elements that reflect the carryover from the silent era.  This is mainly reflected in the acting which tends to be hammy.  Some of the actors’ facial contortions and scenery chewing are distracting.  This is particularly apparent in highly charged scenes like the one where Paul is stuck in the shell crater with the Frenchman he stabbed.  Speaking of which, Lew Ayres is a weak link in the cast.  He is not up to the role and is either too passive or is too histrionic.  Most of the rest of the cast also behave as though they were told they were making a silent movie.  Only a few seem comfortable with the new “talkie” style of restrained acting.  Wolheim (Kat) and Summerville (Tjaden) take the acting honors.  The dialogue is not part of the acting problem.  It is actually not bad and has an appropriate dose of cynicism and soldier humor.  This is undoubtedly due to the fact that much of the dialogue comes from the book and Remarque knew how soldiers talked.

               The acting keeps the film from being great entertainment.  On the other hand, the themes make it an important war movie.  The movie is a good retelling of the most significant war novel ever written.  You do not have to read Remarque’s novel to get his messages.  The movie does that for the audience.  Remarque clearly intended to write an anti-war testament and the movie passes this on admirably.  It has been said that all war movies are anti-war.  I disagree with this, but “All Quiet” has got to be one of the most unambiguous examples of this theory.  The movie is much deeper than “war sucks”.  It also posits that the soldier age generation was betrayed by the establishment (teachers, fathers, generals).  A third theme is that the soldiers were the same no matter the side.  This was hammered at in the shell crater scene.  The scene with the French women expands this theme.   A corollary to this is the soldier discussions that emphasize that soldiers don’t have a clue about what war is all about and why they are fighting.  The cynicism and disillusionment that effect soldiers because of the incompetence and pomposity of leadership are effectively depicted.

 

CONCLUSION “All Quiet” is the king of war movies.  In many ways it created the genre as we know it, although it is not the first war movie.  You could argue it was the first anti-war movie.  Hollywood took a while to evolve to clearly anti-war movies.  Before U.S. entered the war, most war films advocated neutrality.  Then they supported preparedness (The Battle Cry of Peace).  Once we entered, the movies favored intervention.  In the Twenties, Hollywood depicted the war as an adventure (What Price Glory?, Wings, The Big Parade).  By the end of the decade, books like “All Quiet” steered the industry toward cynicism and thus it is the granddaddy of movies like “Platoon”.  More important, the movie established many of the tropes that define war movies.  The comradeship and bonding of soldiers at the front.  The detachment from the home front.  The clueless leaders.  The crusty veterans.  The officer who lets power go to his head.  The friends who go to war together and evolve into experienced soldiers until they die.  Specifically, it created the subgenre of “who will survive?”  It’s a testament to the greatness of the book/movie that the deaths are not predictable and are so memorable.

Beneath Hill 60 (2010)

                Australia has provided war movie lovers with some good movies.  “The Odd Angry Shot” (1979), “Breaker Morant” (1980), “Gallipoli” (1981), “The Lighthorsemen” (1987), and “Kokoda” (2006) are some.  “Beneath Hill 60” is a recent addition to the subgenre.  It was directed by Jeremy Sims.  He was tabbed because of his reputation for filming claustrophobic scenes.  Because of budget constraints, the tunnels were sets constructed indoors.  One set was provided by Hugh Jackman.  It had been used for a trench scene in “X Men Origins: Wolverine”.  It was critically acclaimed in Australia and was nominated for many Australian Film Institute awards including Best  Picture and Best Actor.  The story is based on the diaries of Capt. Oliver Woodward.  It was suggested by a mining engineer and historian.

                The movie is set on the Western Front in 1916.  The war is at a stalemate.  The 1^st Australian Tunneling Company is digging a tunnel in the area of Armentieres.  The men are whispering for fear of countermining.  A stethoscope is used to listen for the Germans.  A canary will warn of any poisonous gas.  A Lt. Woodward (Brendan Cowell) arrives to take command.  Through flashback we learn that he was a mining engineer in Australia when the war broke out.  He woos a lass named Marjorie, but her father is cool to this because Woodward has been receiving numerous white feathers.  His job is important to the war effort, but that matters little to his overly patriotic peers.  Problem solved when the British create the tunneling company and commission him to lead it.

                An early scene depicts the claustrophobic suspenseful nature of mining in warfare.  Two Australians work below the earth when Germans suddenly break through.  There is an intense fight which is heightened by the dousing of the light.  The screen goes blank for a while.  An explosion causes a cave-in.  This is serious business.  Now that the fact has been established we can get on with the story.

                A stereotypical WWI general shows up from his chateau and demands that Woodward’s unit eliminate a German machine gun position called the Red House.  But not by tunnel, instead by crossing no man’s land and packing explosives under the position.   Huge explosion aimed at the American audience.  After this bit of above ground activity, the unit is transferred to the Messines Ridge region.  Their assignment is to tunnel under Hill 60 and lay a huge amount of explosives.  The ensuing eruption will signal the beginning of the battle to take the ridge.  The mining features cat and mouse activities with the suspicious Germans.  When it is suggested to the German general that the front line troops be moved back one hundred yards in anticipation of a mine, he responds that they will concede no ground.   The tunneling is made more difficult by water seeping into the tunnel.  Christ, aren’t there enough man made problems?  It is not a smooth path to the explosion-packed climax.

                “Beneath Hill 60” is well acted, especially by Cowell.  He has a lot of charisma, but underplays the role.  He makes Woodward a likeable character who has to make some tough decisions as good leaders are wont to do.  The supporting cast is fine and there is some nice character development.  The deaths of some are powerful, yet not melodramatic.  The dialogue holds up and the soldiers talk realistically.  (Being an Australian movie, it could have used some subtitles.)  The cinematography is excellent at depicting the claustrophobic nature of this kind of warfare.  The movie does a fine job showing the wet, rainy, muddy, grimy aspect of the war in the trenches and beneath the trenches.

                The film makes effective use of flashbacks.  The scenes from Woodward’s past are brightly lit and pristine to offer a contrast to the trench scenes.  The flashbacks blend in well and are touching.  The movie also does a good job giving a German perspective.  Some sympathy is engendered.

                As far as accuracy, the movie acquits itself well.  Woodward was a metallurgist and mine manager.  He did join the newly created 1^st Australian Tunnelling Company after staying put in Australia due to the importance of his mining job.  The Australian tunneling units were copies of the Royal Engineer units.  They consisted of five officers and 269 sappers.  By the end of the war, there were thirty companies including from Canada and New Zealand.  The 1^st Australian Tunneling Company first saw action when it replaced a British unit that tunneled under German lines in the Ypres Salient.  This is where the movie opens.  The movie does not stick around for the blowing of the mines which was the largest explosion up to that time on the Western Front.  The resulting Hooge Crater was captured by the British, but subsequently changed hands several times with the Germans using mines against it.  When the Australian unit was transferred to Hill 60 on the  Messines Ridge.  Hill 60 was the highest point on the ridge and was used for artillery observation.   The mines had already been constructed and armed by Canadians.  The digging is not shown in the movie which is a shame because it was remarkable.  It was done by miners called “clay kickers” because they used steel spades attached to their feet to dislodge the clay which was then removed by a man following him!  Oxygen depletion was a problem only partially solved by a bellows system similar to that used in “The Great Escape”.   The Australians maintained the mines and conducted activities to discourage German countermining.  This is well depicted in the movie.  This “War Underground” featured shooting, knifing, grenading, and even strangling.  Woodward was assigned the job of setting off the explosions.  Woodward set off possibly the largest non-nuclear explosion in history.  There were a total of 19 craters created.  10,000 Germans were killed. The attack that the mines launched was successful in capturing Hill 60, but now the British were exposed in a salient that the Germans rained artillery fire on and launched numerous counterattacks against.  An incredible four Victoria Crosses were awarded to defenders.  As the movie’s post script says, the hill was retaken by the Huns in 1918.  For those wanting a happy ending,  Woodward married Marjorie when he returned.  He went on to a very successful career in the mining industry.

   

                This is the best movie on mining in WWI.  Of course, it is the only one, but that fact makes it special.  I have a soft spot for movies that bring to light little known people, events, and units from military history.  “Beneath Hill 60” is of this type.  WWI is getting a renewal of interest as we celebrate its hundredth anniversary, but few are familiar with the role tunneling played in the war.  This movie does homage to those brave miners on both sides.  I would question their sanity except that it was an insane war and most of them were using their pre-war skills in service to their countries.

GRADE  =  A-  

SHOULD I READ IT? Angel’s Wing (1993)

                “L’Instinct de L’Ange” is a French film that had a remarkable run in my recent tournament to determine the best film about dogfighting.   It is set on the Western Front in the early years of the war.  It is not your run of the mill air combat movie and has a unique central character. 

                Henri (Lambert Wilson) is a rich boy who has tuberculosis.  His health condition prevents him from volunteering when France goes to war with Germany.  Refusing to give up on his dream to serve his country, he gets flying lessons in anticipation of eventually passing an induction physical.  He learns to fly in a rickety monoplane and when the hole in his lungs closes, he is allowed to join the French air corps.  On arrival at his base, he is counseled by a veteran pilot named Devrines (Francois Cluzet).  He gives him practical advice like how you can tell when you are flying over the front because the German anti-aircraft shells are black and the French are white.  He also learns the best tactic is to hide high in the sun, get in the enemy’s blind spot, and then close to fifty meters to be sure to hit your target.  His initiation is a bit rough as he crashes upon landing twice which gets him put on probation.  Eventually he gets to prove himself against the daily German observation plane.  He uses his back seat machine gunner to get the kill and becomes an instant hero with the nickname “German Smasher”.  This must be early in the war.

                It turns out Henri is a born fighter pilot.  Unfortunately, as his success grows, so does the resentment from his squadron mates.  Part of it is envy and part of it is the belief that his luck is draining their stock of luck.  That’s right he is the opposite of a Jonah, to use a nautical equivalent.  Even the commander suggests he take it easy, he is putting too much stress on his mess mates!  This is not your typical fighter squadron, although it could be a typical French squadron.  He does get wounded and crashes after his thirtieth victory, but since he survives he gets no cred from his mates.  When Devrines predicts that the experience will cause him to become timid, we get a remarkable scene where he tails an observation plane and allows the machine gunner to expend all his ammunition without fighting back.  Things come to a head when his comrades start sabotaging his plane.  This results in an aerial duel between Henri and one of his comrades.

Henri is the only pilot in the French air force
who wants to shoot down Germans

                I did not like “Angel’s Wing” at first.  Wilson was a bit wooden as Henri, but he grows on you as does the character.  Henri is patriotic, but not obsessed.  He is not a glory hound like you see in a lot of dogfighting movies.  He just believes the war is about shooting down enemy planes and is perplexed (as was I) over his peers’ lackadaisical attitude toward that simple strategy.  They look forward to the reward of two days off if they shoot down one plane.  The Devrines character is intriguing as well.  He wavers between being Henri’s mentor and his critic.  The two actors dominate the film with the supporting cast making little impression.

                The strength of the movie is its unusual script and its unique take on WWI air combat.  The movie had a limited number of aircraft available, but they are vintage.  You get to see a Morane, Farman, Spad, Rumpler, and Fokker Dr. 1.  The acrobatics are outstanding.  There is no use of CGI so the movie is the opposite of “Fly Boys”.  The movie gets some nice touches in.  We see a listening post that has four giant hearing aids.  It is really neat to see Henri have to stand up in flight to change his machine gun drum.  There is not a lot of actual dogfighting and all of it is duels instead of melees.  No one shoots down a plane except Henri.  The movie could have easily been a play and that’s a compliment.

                It’s not the best dogfighting movie, but it is worth the watch.  It avoids almost all the standard clichés and is unpredictable.  Just be aware that if you watch the subtitled version, the translation sucks.

GRADE =  B

Von Richthofen and Brown (1971)

                “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+

The Red Baron (2008)

                “The Red Baron” ("Der rote Baron") is a biopic about the most famous fighter pilot is history.  It was written and directed by Nikolai Mullerschon.  The movie was filmed in the Czech Republic, France, and Germany.  The decision was made to use English for the dialogue.  It was very expensive, but was a terrible flop at the box office.  Apparently German audiences were not interested in a movie that glorified a war hero, even if he fought in the less evil of the world wars.

                The movie opens with the tired trope of the boy seeing a plane and dreaming of flying.  Ten years later that boy is now a pilot in Northern France in 1916.  Lt. Manfred von Richthofen (Mathias Schwieghofer) drops a wreath honoring a fallen foe with amazing accuracy into the grave itself.  The Red Baron should have been a bombardier!  The first dogfight comes only five minutes into the movie.  The Red Baron shoots down an S.E. 5 and then goes to the crash site where he helps get medical care for the downed pilot Roy Brown (Joseph Fiennes).  They both meet a comely nurse named Kate (Lena Headey).  Love triangle alert!

 

                Every hero needs a villain and the Red Baron gets his in a British ace named Hawker.  The torch is passed when Richthofen shoots down Hawker.  This is one factor in the Red Baron being awarded Le Pour L’Merite (“ the Blue Max”) and command of the famous Flying Circus.  Higher command, including the Kaiser, wants to make Richthofen into a celebrity for morale purposes.  He is uncomfortable with this and his pacifist beliefs do not jibe with his superiors’ win at all costs attitude.

  His squadron is a small unit featuring a variety of characters including his brother Lothar.  Lothar is younger and more aggressive than Manfred.  They disagree on tactics and philosophy.  Manfred counsels his men to target the enemy planes, not the pilots. One of his men is the famous Werner Voss (Til Schweiger) who acts as a cynical counterpoint to the Red Barons chivalric nature.  He is also something of a friendly competitor.  Voss is a fascinating character, but he does not get the screen time of Kate and Brown.  They keep showing up.  Richthofen shoots Brown down (again) and they meet in no man’s land for some manly bonding.  It’s Brown’s turn next time and Manfred ends up in the hospital where he is able to renew his tense relationship with the snippy Kate.  In real life these two would never get together, but this is a movie so …  Will he choose her and a promotion to head of the Imperial German Air Service over continuing to lead his men into battle?  Which choice is most likely to lead to a climactic duel with Brown?

Von Richthofen and Brown - the revisionist version

The obvious question is how accurate the film is.  The answer is not much.  You don’t have to know much about von Richthofen to guess that large parts of it are bull shit.  It begins immediately with the young baron seeing a monoplane before they would have existed in Germany.  The real Red Baron may have dreamed of flying, but when he entered the military he volunteered for the cavalry.  He only switched to the air service after his unit was dismounted and given boring tasks.  Before he ended up in Northern France to start his rise to fame, he was a back-seater on an observation plane on the Eastern Front.   A chance encounter with the famous ace Oswald Boelcke got him into fighter training.  The movie’s early lead-up to his command of Jagdstaffel 2 is fairly accurate.  He did shoot down Hawker, win the Blue Max, and get command of the squadron after Boelcke’s death.  He did have his plane painted red, but the movie’s implication that he did it to scare the enemy seems farfetched.  Manfred does suffer a bad head wound and undoubtedly did meet at least one nurse during his convalescence, but there was no romance with a nurse named Kate.  Needless to say he also did not have an ongoing bromance with Roy Brown.  They only met once and it was very briefly.  That one brief encounter was the day the Baron died.  Boringly the movie decides to do that famous encounter off camera.  The final scene implies the legend that Brown shot down Richthofen.  For a movie that showed no compunction in violating the truth, it is puzzling why they did not recreate the refuted, but official version of the death.  Most experts feel that the incident did involve Brown coming to the rescue of a friend, but his stay on the Red Baron’s tail was brief and very unlikely to have resulted in the single bullet that killed Manfred.  Most likely the .303 bullet came from an anti-aircraft gun.  How boring!

The biggest faux pas of the movie is the way the Red Baron’s character and philosophy are depicted.  The movie gets this almost completely wrong.  Although he was a cautious pilot, he was not cynical about the war and it is very doubtful that he mouthed off to his superiors.  He also did not avoid targeting enemy pilots.  Quite the contrary, he urged his men to aim at the pilot.  The real Red Baron was primarily a hunter who was driven to accumulate victories.  (The movie conveniently leaves out his famous commissioning of silver trophies for each win.)  His cold personality is realistic, but then the movie undercuts this with the sappy romance which was totally out of character.

“The Red Baron” is competently made.  The acting is average.  Schweighofer was apparently cast mainly for his boyish good looks, not his acting chops.  Headey seems to have wandered into the movie.  There is little chemistry between the two and the romance is forced and implausible.  Of the supporting cast only Schweiger makes an impression as Voss.  He has the charisma Schweighofer lacks.  Fiennes participation feels like they decided they needed a name actor.  He seems bored with the role.  Perhaps he was unmotivated due to the shameful shoehorning of his character into the script.  It is just one of many unrealistic elements in the film.

"Don't fret, Kate.  Few women can compete
with my beauty."

The action is the only thing to recommend the movie for war movie fans.  The CGI is acceptable and better than in “Flyboys”.  The cinematographer sticks to the usual frontal cockpit shots intercut with machine guns firing.  There are eight dogfighting scenes and there is some attempt to have some variety.  This can result in some silliness like a cool, but ridiculous night dogfight.  One nice result from the campy multi-coloring of the Flying Circus planes is this is one dogfighting film where you can follow the various characters.  The movie does not avoid the clichés common in this subgenre.  The young boy sees a plane and dreams, the villainous foe,  the hero loses his best friend(s) and becomes increasingly disillusioned, the air field is attacked, romance with a local girl but bros before hos, missing lucky charm = death, WWI pilots live in a chateau.  And we get the trip to the trenches to remind us how dirty war actually is.

Actual gun camera footage from WWI

How this movie was green-lighted is perplexing.  In an age where anti-heroes are de rigueur, “The Red Baron” looks like it should be playing on a double bill with “To Hell and Back”.  But then again, portraying von Richthofen realistically as a jerk probably would have been just as box office blah.  What the Hell, just watch it because it’s pretty entertaining.  Your girlfriend will enjoy it and you can feel superior as you snort at the silliness.

GRADE =  C