Does anyone remember this movie...?

J

Jimko

Guest
Hello all...

A number of years ago on a business trip, and while staying in a hotel room...do you wonder where I'm going with this? :costumes:

To continue...I happened to catch briefly on tv part of a movie that was showing about WW1 flyers, and the scene I remember included some pretty neat looking plane chase over and along a canal or river at low altitude. I think that there was some reference to one of the pilots sipping on a bottle of high-octane beverage...its all kind of vague as it was interrupted by phone calls and work related nonsense while I just wanted to watch that damn movie!

So, my question is...does this sound familiar to anyone? Any idea what the movie might have been? I've wondered many times, but have yet to discover what it was. I had the impression that it may have been a pretty good film, but that was just an impression based on a pretty brief viewing.

Perhaps this link has been posted before on this forum, but it is an alphabetical list of dozens and dozens of air war and flight movies that you might find interesting...from very old to very new...

http://www.aerofiles.com/film-a.html

Thanks for any help, and enjoy the movies! :ernae:
 
I think you're referring to "Blue Max", which had George Peppard as the main character. It featured some prominant tidbits of the time; for instance, late in the movie I think someone (Peppard?) is killed when the wing shreads off the top of the D8 he was test-flying. And, of course, I believe a cameo by MVR as well.
 
It's a Huge list that can not be denied, but how many are still available.

Reason I ask is, Films from the pre-WWII years, if they weren't transferred to DVD, they're History. The films shot in that time, are printed on a material that decomposes over time, and most times after 40 years, under ideal storage conditions, those films are unsaveable at any cost. An aviation classic from 1930 Produced by Howard Hughes was put on DVD in 1958 by Howard Hughes, Hell's Angels. If there's motorcycles, that ain't it:d Used to be at Amazon - Not Anymore

The List of what you can get, some cheap, some expensive on DVD

Hell's Angels
The Blue Max
12 O'Clock High
The Final Countdown
Those Amazing Men in their Flying Machines
The Amazing Waldo Pepper
Richtofen and Brown
Flyboys

Got more.. that can be bought
 
You might be referring to "The Blue Max". The scene in particular is when Stachel and Willi are seeing who is the best flier by flying under a bridge over a river in Fokker DrIs. The scene ends with Willi crashing into a chimney I believe and hits the ground. Also the "DVIII" Cliff was referring to was in actuality a Morane Saulnier MS.130.

CJ
 
I just remember this big white towel that refused to budge :violent:. Even when viewing the action from an extreme angle didn't help :angryfir:
 
cliff527 said:
I think you're referring to "Blue Max", which had George Peppard as the main character. It featured some prominant tidbits of the time; for instance, late in the movie I think someone (Peppard?) is killed when the wing shreads off the top of the D8 he was test-flying. And, of course, I believe a cameo by MVR as well.
Click to expand...

Sorry guys...I should have foreseen this reply!

I've never related it to the Blue Max, a movie I've seen many times including when it first came out. But, I haven't watched the Max for several years now and you've got me wondering if the snippet I saw was actually from that movie...??

Was there something about one of them sipping on a bottle, as that sticks in my mind? Or was it me sipping...??

OMG, am I even older than I think and suffering memory loss? :isadizzy:

Now, what was I doing?
 
gimpyguy said:
It's a Huge list that can not be denied, but how many are still available.

Reason I ask is, Films from the pre-WWII years, if they weren't transferred to DVD, they're History. The films shot in that time, are printed on a material that decomposes over time, and most times after 40 years, under ideal storage conditions, those films are unsaveable at any cost. An aviation classic from 1930 Produced by Howard Hughes was put on DVD in 1958 by Howard Hughes, Hell's Angels. If there's motorcycles, that ain't it:d Used to be at Amazon - Not Anymore

The List of what you can get, some cheap, some expensive on DVD

Hell's Angels
The Blue Max
12 O'Clock High
The Final Countdown
Those Amazing Men in their Flying Machines
The Amazing Waldo Pepper
Richtofen and Brown
Flyboys

Got more.. that can be bought
Click to expand...

Oh yes, agreed, and I didn't mean to imply that these are all available, not at all. However it's an interesting list of what may be available and what was made over time. There are companies that slowly dig some of these out for specialty DVD and past VHS productions...witness the Zeno Warbirds Drive In and all the DVDs he offers made just for WW2 air war fans using WW2 documentary films.

But here and there, some like "Hell's Angels" are around on DVD, and don't forget about "Aces High" and the 1938 classic "Dawn Patrol".

"Hell's Angels" available here...http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=6763919
 
About the only one I can recall with someone sipping on a bottle while flying was "High Road to China" with Tom Selleck. No doubt you would have recognized him though.

CJ
 
Over a canal or river.... I know there is a scene at the end of Richtofen and Brown where they're chasing each other over a river.

Personnally though I barely made it through that movie, it just seemed put together really quickly and the characters were 1 step away from being bi-polar cardboard cut-outs. John Phillip Law looks way out of place (he's 6'5") and there is minimal effort to make him look less towering, bad casting. The real Richtofen sure doesnt look that tall in pictures and video, I could be wrong though. Brown comes across as just plain annoying rather than the "bad boy" image they were going after. After an airraid in which all of the Jastas aircraft are destroyed, magically new parts arrive and they assemble the entire squadron (meaning rebuild aircraft) quickly enough to attack the Brits airfield that same day, with Brown throwing in some kind of mini-plot about physics sideways during the attack.... C'mon man! My non-believable radar pinged "TILT". Nice to see WWI replicas flying around and all, but its just not that great a film. I use the Blue Max (personal favorite) as my benchmark for well made WWI flying movies, and R&B falls far below it IMHO.

Whups this is turning into a review so I'll end this now....Hope that doesnt dash your enthusiasm if in case that was the movie, but thats what I got from it.
 
Yes Brown vs MvR was crap. I agree.

The Great Waldo Pepper was very good, Hell's Angels was tough at times, but all-in-all a very good movie, as was The Blue Max.

Flyboys was terrible aside from the over-dramatic dogfighting. The Noops looked like advertisment billboards for several French Escadrilles, and once again, the all red Dr.1 squadron was pathetic.

I own 12 o'clock high, The Blue Max, Hell's Angels and The Final Countdown. They're all worth owning, and are great movies. I'd like to get Waldo Pepper, and will most likely pass on the rest.

OvS
 
Jimko said:
Hello all...

A number of years ago on a business trip, and while staying in a hotel room...do you wonder where I'm going with this? :costumes:

To continue...I happened to catch briefly on tv part of a movie that was showing about WW1 flyers, and the scene I remember included some pretty neat looking plane chase over and along a canal or river at low altitude. I think that there was some reference to one of the pilots sipping on a bottle of high-octane beverage...its all kind of vague as it was interrupted by phone calls and work related nonsense while I just wanted to watch that damn movie!

So, my question is...does this sound familiar to anyone? Any idea what the movie might have been? I've wondered many times, but have yet to discover what it was. I had the impression that it may have been a pretty good film, but that was just an impression based on a pretty brief viewing.

Perhaps this link has been posted before on this forum, but it is an alphabetical list of dozens and dozens of air war and flight movies that you might find interesting...from very old to very new...

http://www.aerofiles.com/film-a.html

Thanks for any help, and enjoy the movies! :ernae:
Click to expand...


Did this have a scene at the end where 2 guys are having fun dog-fighting and one of them has a heart-attack, crashes and dies in front of a crowd? I remember watching a black and white flick as a kid with that in it. I never knew what the movie was though. I thought it was a WWI flick, but again, I don't remember, and I never found out.

OvS
 
catch22 said:
I just remember this big white towel that refused to budge :violent:. Even when viewing the action from an extreme angle didn't help :angryfir:
Click to expand...

That towel should have been placed in a museum wrapped around a wax figure of her in it.

Shame we can't have that.... :(

OvS
 
Well, thanks guys...

Militant...I have no idea if it was Richtofen and Brown since I've never watched it. Many reviews I've seen are pretty much similar to yours and ovs...:icon_lol:

I wonder now if I really did see bits of the scene from The Blue Max as discussed above, and yet at the time my impression was that this film was an earlier vintage.

The Blue Max is still about the top of the heap for me too! It has a charm and at the same time a grittiness never matched by others that I've seen.

The 1938 black and white "Dawn Patrol", while typical of some pretty hokey stunts and dialog of early movies still has some redeeming qualities in picutres and scenes of aircraft and airfield activity. It also has the charm of the earlier age of film making with a bit of message re the war.
 
The only thing that bothered me, and it's small, about "The Blue Max" was the guns on Stachel's Pfalz. There were no ammunition feeds or ejection chutes on them and they shook like they weren't securely fastened. Come to think of it IIRC the DrI guns were the same. I always thought "How in the heck can he actually hit anything with those guns, even if they were getting ammo?" I guess they did without the feeds and ejection chutes so you could see the actor's faces. Movies!:isadizzy:

CJ
 
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