Tuesday 10 May 2011

THE RED BARON (2006)

I am rather fond of Roger Corman's VON RICHTOFEN AND BROWN (aka THE RED BARON) but I think that this German film (made entirely in English) has the edge on it. A critical and box-office disaster, it has been pointed out that the film is far from historically accurate in its retelling of the story of WWI's greatest air ace, Manfred Von Richtofen - The Red Baron. It is my view that when you are making a fiction film about a character who has become almost a semi-mythological figure one should follow John Ford's dictum from THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE that "When the legend becomes fact - print the legend." This does not mean a complete perversion of fact - just an acknowledgement of the legend. I thought this film handled fact and fiction rather well and it certainly contains some pretty hair-raising flying sequences. The film struggles a bit trying to give Richtofen a romance with a pretty nurse and a meeting with Roy Brown (the Canadian pilot who was officially credited with downing the German ace, although it is now generally believed he wasn't responsible) in No Man's Land. As, I said above, I enjoyed the film - probably as much as Corman's version and for similar reasons. Rating: ***

2 comments:

Cerpts said...

Sadly I've never seen the Corman film. So guess which two movies were just added to my queue...

Weaverman said...

Hope you won't be disappointed but Snoopy isn't in either.