ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

GazerRise Fantastic!

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

poe426 VON RICHTHOFEN AND BROWN was one of those movies I'd been dying to see for years and I must admit that I wasn't as disappointed as I was afraid I was going to be: it's a thoroughly enjoyable (if often historically wonky) action movie, and boasts perhaps the finest dogfights ever committed to film (certainly far superior to the aerial combat sequences in movies like THE BLUE MAX and THE RED BARON). The greatest fault with VON RICHTHOFEN AND BROWN is, of course, the script: it comes to us from the same husband and wife team who botched both Richard Matheson's I AM LEGEND (retitled THE OMEGA MAN, though Neville in the movie was clearly NOT the last man on Earth) and the dreadful BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES; that VON RICHTHOFEN AND BROWN turned out as well as it did is something of a miracle and no doubt attributable to Roger Corman's direction. Though (justifiably) famous for his low budget forays into Fantasy and Exploitation films, Corman pulls off quite a coup here. Kudos.

MartinHafer John Phillip Law is cast in the role of Baron Von Richthofen and Don Stroud as Roy Brown--the man who is PARTIALLY credited with killing the Red Baron. The real stars of the show, however, are the airplanes. Now I am not saying the aerial scenes were well done--they were at best fair because you rarely knew who was shooting at who, and so it often just seemed very random. As for the acting, it was pretty one-dimensional (especially Stroud) and this was mostly due to the writing. In addition, while SOME of the details are correct, others are not--so you can't exactly see this as a bio-pic--more like a fictionalized look at BRIEF periods of the lives of both men. One serious problem with the film is the final scene where Brown shoots down Von Richtofen--as there was SIGNIFICANT ground-fire and most experts believe this actually caused the Red Baron's plane to crash, not Brown! Yet, inexplicably, there are no soldiers on the ground--none--and the credit goes entirely to Brown--who was, for the most part, a rather unremarkable pilot otherwise."Von Richthofen and Brown" is a competent enough movie to merit your watching it. However, it is far from a great aviation film--mostly because the characters are so one-dimensional and because the film seems more fiction than biography. Instead, you may consider better WWI aviation films like "The Dawn Patrol" (either version), "Wings" or "The Blue Max".

kayma2 It is pointed out that "goofs" were made in the making of this film. (A) Von Richofen is depicted flying a Fokker D-VII over a year before the plane was actually introduced (and prior to flying the Triplane) (B) Brown's squadron is shown flying SE 5s when in actuality, they were equipped with Sopwith Camels.I suspect these were intentional choices on the part of the director. Von Richtofen's plane in early 1917 was actually an Albatros D5 - an improvement over the earlier D3, but having an unfortunate tendency to shed its wings in a dive. Even if this were corrected in a modern reproduction, the Albatros design is nose-heavy and difficult to control.The Sopwith Camel, while an effective fighting machine, was called th "Widow-maker" for good reason. It's extremely high-torque rotary engine made it very difficult to fly and very unforgiving of mistakes. The SE 5 and 5a, on the other hand were fairly stable craft and easier for novice pilots (they've been used exclusively in other WW I films).Only hard-core WWI historians would have noticed these inconsistencies, and I suspect the choices were made for the safety of the stunt pilots. Don't let them stop you from enjoying some great aerial combat scenes.Incidentally, the events that were reversed were the circumstances of von Richtofen's crashes. In the first one, he is depicted as crash landing, while in the second (fatal) one, the plane actually lands quite well by itself (this would NEVER have happened in a Fokker triplane!)It was actually the other way around. The first time, the wounded von Richtofen managed to bring his Albatros to a landing. The second time -already dead before he hit the ground - the plane crashed in no-man's land near an Australian unit who may indeed have hit him from the ground.

tiomingo I have just written a comment to "ACES HIGH" (1976) and that remind me of this film which I watched as kid when it was released; since then I have watched it only once and that was more than enough. As Kevin well says "it is a complete waste of time". Apart from the dog-fights which are nicely done the rest is a sequence of badly patched scenes with actors struggling with a lousy script and equally lousy direction. I do not remember the silly German accents mentioned by Kevin in his comment, but that is another pathetic mistake; if Corman tried to make more convincing the characterization of the German pilots why didn't he use German actors or have those parts dubbed? On the other hand is good example of the appalling Hollywood-style of film-making with their "villains" so clearly identifiable, not only by their cruel actions but also by their grotesque accents.Talking about "cruel actions" the ridiculous scene were Lieutenant Hermann Goering murders English nurses during an attack on an airbase is an absolutely disgusting piece of propaganda done with "historical hindsight". If you want to a see a factual, moving, very well acted and directed film about the air war during WWI watch "ACES HIGH" (1976) or that wonderful classic "THE DAWN PATROL" (1938) you shall not be disappointed.