Product Description

A lowborn World War I German ace covets a medal of honor and his highborn commander's wife.

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The Blue Max is highly unusual among Hollywood films, not just for being a large-scale drama set during the generally overlooked World War I, but in concentrating on air combat as seen entirely from the German point of view. The story focuses on a lower-class officer, Bruno Stachel (George Peppard), and his obsessive quest to win a Blue Max, a medal awarded for shooting down 20 enemy aircraft. Around this are subplots concerning a propaganda campaign by James Mason's pragmatic general, rivalry with a fellow officer (Jeremy Kemp), and a love affair with a decadent countess (Ursula Andress).

As directed by John Guillermin (who later made The Battle of Britain in 1969), the film's main assets are epic production values, great flying scenes, and stunning dogfights. The weak point is the sometimes ponderous character drama, not helped by Peppard, who is too lightweight an actor to convince as the driven antihero. Clearly influenced by Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1958), The Blue Max is a cold, cynical drama offering a visually breathtaking portrait of a stultified society tearing itself apart during the final months of the Great War. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Aspect Ratio : 2.35:1
• Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
• MPAA rating : Unrated (Not Rated)
• Product Dimensions : 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 3.2 ounces
• Director : John Guillermin
• Media Format : Color, Widescreen, Closed-captioned, NTSC, Letterboxed
• Run time : 2 hours and 30 minutes
• Release date : May 13, 2008
• Actors : George Peppard, James Mason, Ursula Andress, Jeremy Kemp, Karl Michael Vogler
• Dubbed: : French
• Subtitles: : English, Spanish
• Language : French (Dolby Digital 1.0), Unqualified, Spanish (Dolby Digital 1.0), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Studio : 20th Century Fox
• Writers : Basilio Franchina, Ben Barzman, David Pursall, Gerald Hanley, Jack Hunter
• Number of discs : 1