The Red Baron/Von Richthofen & Brown

BM

Could I just add my apologies in case anything I said in previous posts caused offence to you? This was not intended at all.

Rob / Kansan

Yes you are correct, the dig dog fight schene near the end features some footage shot in ireland for earlier films.

Just out of interest, am I right in thinking that some of the footage from this film ended up being reused (along with a few bits from The Blue Max) in Aces High??

BM – I never made the connection when GASML mentioned “Charles Boddington” – terribly sorry if this thread has caused you any upset.

Hatton – enjoy! 😉

unfortunately it happens and people are not to know, have just brought a copy of it on Amazon, didnt realise it was still available so at least i have it for the family vault!
Get it and watch it for what it is, a piece of entertainment with some great flying sequences in it with some loverly replica aircraft.

Blue Max.
I certainly didn’t mean to aim a slight at your late Father.
If I caused you offence I’m certainly ready to apologise for that.

BM – I never made the connection when GASML mentioned “Charles Boddington” – terribly sorry if this thread has caused you any upset.

Hatton – enjoy! 😉

Hatton – I’ve got Hell’s Angels on R2.

re-arrange: all come once christmasses at have 🙂

delightful, 🙂

Blue Max.
I certainly didn’t mean to aim a slight at your late Father.
If I caused you offence I’m certainly ready to apologise for that.
The Red Baron film meant no more to me than the sort of thing one dozes through on a Winters Sunday after Roast Beef and a few beers and at the end you think bl**dy rubbish.
As usual there’s much more going on behind the scenes than the punters realise.
Thanks for telling us about it in this case.
Cheers
Andy

If this is the film I think you’re talking about, I would say ‘dubious historical accuracy’ must be the greatest understatement used in the history of this forum.
This film is utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter crap.
It’s an insult to the pilots, ground crew and anyone else who served on either side during The Great War.
You won’t find a copy because they were all destroyed years ago on the grounds of taste.

Ask Melv about the likelyhood of being able to have a sh*g on the fuselage of a Fokker Triplane.
Although knowing Hiscock as I do he’s probably tried!

Take deep breath and count to 10, no make that 100!!!
I have more reason to hate this film than most, as GASML has already stated my father was killed durring the shooting of this film. It was a disaster from start to finish, there were several accidents durring filming and then one of the full size SE5 replica,s was lent to the production crew of “Zeppelin” that was being filmed at the same time, this had a mid air with the camera ship and all perished, including the aerial co,ordinater for “Von Richtofen and Brown. At this point as has been stated all insurance policy’s were frozen, the only way to make the insurance company happy was to remove some of the existing pilots and employ some that were acceptable to the insurane company, this ment pilots who were experianced in film flying and in particular flying these replica’s. My father and Derrek Piggot were called in, worse phone call we ever had!!! My father was killed flying an SE5a replica whilst filming some extra shots that the dirrector wanted just in case, the main film was allready in the can! As an aside the insurance was not up to date and my mother had to fight tooth and nail to get anything.
So as i said, i do not particularly like this film, i am interested to know that its available on Amazon though as i would like a copy for history’s sake, one day my son will want to know about his grandad.
In all of this you have to realise that these films are made to make a profit, the biggest market is in the USA and that is why the mojority of them are biased towards the Americans. They are also made for entertainment!, they are not and never claim to be historical documentry’s! they are for the 90% of film goers who would not know the diffrence between a SE5 and a Sopwith Camel or care! If you made for the 10% who do then it would probably be so borring that no one else would go and the money men would never finance another one!
I agree that its about time for a good WW! flying film, but you are never going to please the purists and also sell it to the masses! and somtimes somthing is better than nothing!
So next time you want to be critical of any film, flying or not, maybe you should have a little think about what price was paid to make it!

Kansan,
No I certainly don’t think ‘Journeys End’ is clart.Andy

I didn’t think you did.

By modernist I really mean that the ‘slant’ is one of disillusionment at the futility of war. A feeling that authors/playwrights often developed in the post war period.
Another good example of this is the character of Seddon in V.M. Yeates’ ‘Winged Victory’. I think many returnees from the trenches felt that the post war World was a serious let-down, so much so that a certain corporal in Germany got involved with extreme politics and we know what happened there.
A book that explores this idea in some detail is ‘The Flower of Battle’ by Hugh Cecil.

Hmmm, my reading list has just increased by two. 😉

The film of Journeys End was I think made in the 1960’s. I can see the actors face who played the lead in my minds eye but can’t think of his name (don’t you hate it when that happens).
It makes a change to have a Great War thread running on here.
Cheers
Andy

That’s interesting. It isn’t listed in IMDB and they’re usually pretty good. Sure it was a film?

PS In WWI my grandfather was in the North Norfolks (I think) and then transferred (or was ordered to transfer) to the Cheshire Regiment after they took heavy casualties at some point. He died when I was 4 so I never spoke to him about this or about very much indeed. I do have his medals.

Rob / Kansan

Hatton – I’ve got Hell’s Angels on R2.

Try HERE

Thanks Mike, that’s very helpful, I looked for it whilst I was over there but instead came back with plenty of other DVDs that I had not intended to purchase! It appears it was released mid-june towards the end of my trip when I’d given up! Looks like I shall purchase it from Amazon.

Best Regards, Steve

Wasn’t there/isn’t there a production of Journey’s End knocking about in one of the theatres in the west end at the moment? Or has this finished?

If anyone has a copy of Hell’s Angels, then that is a film I would dearly LOVE to see.

Best Regards, Steve

Yep must be another of Andy’s Norfolk colloquialisms! 😀

No that’s pure Bedfordshire. I heard it from an old boy who did some plumbing on my house about ten years ago.

I liked it enough to use it myself.

Speaking of Norfolk and Norwich (a very fine city) the second best novel about The Great War, ‘The Spanish Farm’ was written by RH Mottram, himself a Norwich man.

So, everyone here should read a) Winged Victory by Victor Yeates and b) The Spanish Farm by R.H. Mottram.

I’ve concluded that if I bang on about The Great War for long enough eventually I might convert one person.

Later
Andy

If I’ve learned one thing from these forums, it’s a new word: clart! 😉

Yep must be another of Andy’s Norfolk colloquialisms! 😀

My great great uncle was a fighter pilot during WWI, sadly we know virtually nothing about his history, apart from like many pilots he was shot down and killed. 🙁

Kansan,
It makes a change to have a Great War thread running on here.
Cheers
Andy

Hope I’ll have some material of interest to post later this evening that might make another WW1 hread – still scanning madly just now!

Andy,

I’m glad you didn’t think “Journey’s End” was clart – R.C. Sherriff was in the trenches in WW1 – Captain in the 9th East Surrey Regiment 1915-1918. He was wounded at Passchendaele [Wikipedia]. The ‘modernist’ bit may be artistic comment but in temporal terms the play was written in 1928 and first performed in 1929.

I remember a dramatisation of the play starring Edward Petherbridge (among others) on the BBC in 1988 (and I’ve still got a video of it somewhere) but IMDB doesn’t list a film apart from a 1918 (??) and the 1930 versions directed by James Whale (who directed Laurence Olivier (yes, him) in the first stage production) – not that *that* matters in this context.

R/K

Kansan,
No I certainly don’t think ‘Journeys End’ is clart.
By modernist I really mean that the ‘slant’ is one of disillusionment at the futility of war. A feeling that authors/playwrights often developed in the post war period.
Another good example of this is the character of Seddon in V.M. Yeates’ ‘Winged Victory’. I think many returnees from the trenches felt that the post war World was a serious let-down, so much so that a certain corporal in Germany got involved with extreme politics and we know what happened there.
A book that explores this idea in some detail is ‘The Flower of Battle’ by Hugh Cecil.

The film of Journeys End was I think made in the 1960’s. I can see the actors face who played the lead in my minds eye but can’t think of his name (don’t you hate it when that happens).

It makes a change to have a Great War thread running on here.
Cheers
Andy

If you read the trivia for this movie, it states that:

The rest of the trivia is pretty amazing too. I never read that far.

Rob

If you read the trivia for this movie, it states that:

Production was shut down briefly due to a disaster on another semi-related film in the area. Birch Williams, an American living expat in Ireland, was the owner of the period planes Corman leased for the production. He was so interested in and excited by what Corman was doing that he decided to make a similar film himself, using his own planes. Unfortunately, there was a midair mishap, and Williams and two pilots were killed. In response, the Irish government shut down all film flying, and the insurance company cancelled Corman’s policy. It took several days of negotiation to get their status restored, and to resume production.

Has anyone got a copy of this film that I might be able to acquire?

I know it has dubious accuracy, among other things, but I’ve been dying to see it for ages!

I didn’t realise this was directed by Roger Corman. (Personal Bias ON)That explains rather a lot. (Personal Bias OFF)
Is this the one where Roy Brown drinks a glass of Red Wine instead of his usual milk when one of the newbie pilots gets killed?

You can get an American or German VHS cassette off Amazon. I just looked. Nothing available at all for the UK.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000339/ for more info on Corman.

R/K

Personally, I’d love a British-size budget WW1 movie. I’m sure they find work for my Luton Minor in an appropriate livery – it’s happened before!! (Thanks for the pic Propstrike!)

That’d go nicely with an Eindekkerised Volksplane I saw recently! :diablo: