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: ***
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:
Sadly I've never seen the Corman film. So guess which two movies were just added to my queue...
Hope you won't be disappointed but Snoopy isn't in either.
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