Von Richthofen and Brown

1971 "On April 21, 1918, the Red Baron of Germany and the Black Sheep of the R.A.F. met in the skies of France for the last time!"
6| 1h37m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 30 June 1971 Released
Producted By: United Artists
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Spend time on both sides of World War I, partly with German flying ace Baron Manfred Von Richthofen (John Phillip Law), aka "The Red Baron," and his colorful "flying circus" of Fokker fighter planes, during the time from his arrival at the war front to his death in combat. On the other side is Roy Brown of the Royal Air Force, sometimes credited with shooting Richthofen down.

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Reviews

Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place
BlazeLime Strong and Moving!
Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
Scotty Burke It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review
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".
reisen55 The flying sequences in this film are authentic, which is the best thing going here, we see real men in the aircraft in the AIR and not on a blue screen set, as in THE BLUE MAX from which this film has it's roots and where most of the aircraft came from. Since the aircraft were available from the latter, the complaints about vintage aircraft being out of time-sync are valid, but given the budget ... you make do with what you have. Case closed here.THE BLUE MAX had decent dogfights, but blue screen as above so here the combat sequences are better. THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER also had real IN THE AIR footage of both pilots and aircraft, certain a fine pseudo-dogfight at the end of it.DARLING LILI I have never seen much of so I will refrain, though more BLUE MAX aircraft once again.Now we have the CGI films such as THE RED BARON and FLYBOYS, both of which show great action, totally faked and also totally way too fast. Watch the speed and action of these earlier films and you sense that these old planes did not move THAT FAST as these two films show them. Great stuff, but totally fake.Give me real any day of the week. For this film and THE BLUE MAX, Enjoy the dogfights, tolerate the acting and have good time.
bassetbudz I don't see the sense in going through so much trouble to make a movie like this, and then throw the history book out the window. There wasn't a single accurate detail in that movie other than the fact than Richtofen died, which I was grateful for at the end so I didn't have to watch any more. Movies like this are an insult to anyone who knows anything about WWI aerial history.I'll skip the obvious, that they were flying Fokker DVII's in 1916, because the Blue Max did that too, or that 209 squadron was flying SE-5's, and will attack other parts. For one thing, they call the Pfalz D-III an 'old Albatross' at the beginning. For another, they have Voss, Goring, and Wolff all in Jasta Boelcke. The only one who was in that Jasta was Voss, and he joined after Boelcke died. Richtofen wasn't held to blame for Boelcke's death...Erwin Boehme, who collided with Boelcke, had swerved to avoid a British plane that Richtofen was chasing. When Richtofen received his head wound, it was while attacking a FE-2d two-seater, and he did not crash into the trenches and have soldiers fight over him, and NO..Werner Voss did not die that day. He died September 28th in one of the most epic battles in WWI.Manfred was short, not like the actor who towered over everyone else. His brother Lothar was never in Jasta Boelcke either, he joined the squadron when Manfred was in charge of Jasta 11.There's so many other glaring errors in historical fact that I'll let them go except perhaps the worst one, the death scene. In the movie Manfred is out-maneuvered by Brown and then shot down, making a perfect landing. Brown got off one burst at Richtofen while Richtofen was chasing May, and the facts amassed over the years overwhelmingly show that Richtofen was killed by ground fire, not by Brown.The only value in this movie was the chance to see the flying scenes themselves, which were as good as 'The Blue Max', other than that I won't watch it again and I paid $30 for the tape!