Underrated - The Blue Max (John Guillermin 1966)

World War I drama about about an obssessive pilot whose quest to win the Blue Max medal awarded for twenty confirmed kills brings him into conflict with his colleagues. Bruno Stachel (George Peppard) is determined to prove himself by earning the highest medal available to a German pilot, The Blue Max, awarded for 20 confirmed kills in battle. Stachel started the war in the trenches as a soldier, before retraining as a pilot. When he joins his new unit he finds himself in amongst his social superiors. Stachel is polite, but embarrassed when forced to reveal his father works in a hotel. There is steel behind those blue eyes and we quickly come to realise there may be little else.

Stachel describes the Blue Max as being the only medal worth having. On his first flight he shoots down a British plane, but there is no confirmation. Nobody saw him do it and he is prevented from trying to find the wreckage by a superior officer. One of his colleagues died during their last outing, though Stachel is more concerned about proving his first kill. Ace pilot Willi von Klugermann (Jeremy Kemp) suggests as much in the Officer’s bar, but backs down when Stachel points out there is no time to toast fallen comrades with champagne in the trenches.

Stachel’s ambition is at odds with his old-fashioned comrades who believe in honour and fighting a war with chivalry. These notions died in the trenches, but none of these aristocrats have ever been in them. Stachel delivers his next kill for confirmation, forcing a plane towards his unit’s base and machine-gunning the observer pilot to death in front of them. Commanding Officer Colonel Otto Heidemann (Karl Michael Vogler) is disgusted and orders Stachel to attend a funeral for the British pilots. Stachel refuses despising the hypocrisy, “When they kill me, I don’t want anyone to salute.”


Stachel intercedes when a British plane has the famous Red Baron in his sights. A grateful Baron asks him to join his Unit, but Stachel refuses. General von Klugermann (James Mason) learns of the encounter and uses it for propaganda turning Stachel into a hero. Stachel gets the applause he has always craved and the attentions of the Brigadier’s wife Kaeti (Ursula Andress), although he is also aware the fancy folk will never afford him the same respect they would to one of their own. Only flying seems to satisfy him and the pursuit of the Blue Max.

John Guillermin directs in a typically workmanlike manner, although at 155 minutes The Blue Max is far too long and the admittedly impressive flying sequences become tedious after a while. Guillermin has a gift for the spectacular, a gift he would show off in his most famous movie The Towering Inferno (1974). It is evident here too, especially during Stachel’s dizzying final flight as he shows off his flying skills to an admiring audience.

What really makes the film interesting is Stachel, whose poor background and time in the trenches have made him ruthless. Peppard is best known these days for the 80’s hit show The A-Team, but he was a film star once and a good one. Ursula Andress was beautiful as a Bond girl in Dr No (Terence Young 1963), but her sexuality was toned down for audiences who liked to believe a mere man could tame such a woman. No such luck. Stachel is doomed from the moment he playfully beats out a military drum roll in her bedroom, the kind the German air force play at funerals as they bury their dead.