Le baron rouge

Original title: Von Richthofen and Brown

IMDb RATING

6.0/10

1.5K

YOUR RATING

The story of Manfred von Richthofen, the German air ace during World War I and his struggle with the enemy aces and some jealous German officers.

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Action Biography Drama History War

The story of Manfred von Richthofen, the German air ace during World War I and his struggle with the enemy aces and some jealous German officers.The story of Manfred von Richthofen, the German air ace during World War I and his struggle with the enemy aces and some jealous German officers.The story of Manfred von Richthofen, the German air ace during World War I and his struggle with the enemy aces and some jealous German officers.

Director
- Roger Corman
Writers
- John William Corrington
- Joyce Hooper Corrington
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.0/10

1.5K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Roger Corman
Writers
- John William Corrington
- Joyce Hooper Corrington
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Videos2

Trailer 3:03

Trailer

Clip 1:31

Von Richthofen And Brown: Baron Vs. Goering

Clip 1:31

Von Richthofen And Brown: Baron Vs. Goering

Photos22

+ 16

User reviews33

6.01.4K

Featured reviews

7rps-2

Great flying sequences

This is not the greatest WWI movie ever made. But it's still pretty good. The special effects and the flying sequences are superb. And Roy Brown not only is identified as a Canadian --- rare for Hollywood --- but he also is presented as the prickly and difficult character he was. That's also rare for Hollywood which tends to ignore the warts on its heroes. The movie is also reasonably historically accurate.

5merklekranz

Ambitious by Roger Corman standards with mixed results.......

Roger Corman leaps beyond crab monsters and biker chicks to the skies over World War1 France. The film takes right off with flying sequences, which are surprisingly good. Characters are introduced at an overwhelming rate with little or no development. Both John Philip Law and Don Stroud appear uncomfortable in their flying ace roles. In their "spaghetti westerns" they look and act like they belong, but here they seem lost and out of their element. Romantic female characters are introduced, only to never be seen again. The air battles are definitely the strong point of "Von Richthofen and Brown", but even they become redundant. - MERK

7rps-2

Bless you Red Baron...

The flying sequences alone make this a film well worth seeing. They are much like those in The Battle Of Britain except, of course, the aircraft are of World War I vintage. It's also encouraging that Roy Brown was portrayed as a Canadian (which he was) rather than an American. The man had some very rough edges and these are portrayed in the film. (In one unrelated incident, he almost got court martialed for buzzing Picadilly Circus.) In other words Brown was not shown as some sort of handsome Hollywood knight of the sky but a very rough, arrogant, unsophisticated and even unpleasant individual. Good! Thats how it was. Better by half than most war films of its era.

xorys

Better than expected

Given the very negative comments by others on IMDB about this film, I wasn't really expecting much, especially given that it was directed by Roger Corman, who, whilst he certainly has his talents, would not really be expected to helm a period piece with high production values. Actually I found this film not at all bad. Certainly its narrative plays fast and loose with historical details. But it is quite authentic in many respects - the planes themselves, and the nature of air combat depicted, are reasonably accurate (better, for example, than the planes in The Blue Max, which often look like very thinly disguised Tiger Moths). And fair chunks of the dialogue seem to be taken almost directly from the writings of actual WW1 flyers. Even the rather melodramatic plot does have roots in historical truths, and functions well enough to engage the viewer's attention throughout. I'd say it's definitely worth a look, and compares surprisingly well with the generally much better regarded The Blue Max.

6Etherdave

Still One Of My Favorites

John Philipp Law and Don Stroud respectively play the two men named in this film's original title, Von Richtofen And Brown, and presents a fairly balanced and interesting set of parallels and divergences between the two men. As World War One rages to its conclusion, Von Richtofen and Brown head on a collision course towards their fateful encounter in the air.

Corman's production is a bit dated, and purists will point out many technical and historical errors in the film. Flight and combat sequences, however, are exciting, extremely well-conceived and filmed, and surpass most efforts before or since to show film-goers aerial combat of the First World War.

I saw this film at a drive-in when it was first released, and it still fascinates me to this day. While other more-expensive productions, with their sumptuous sets and A-list actors, continue to command the attention of film viewers and film collectors alike, I find the simple, sparing lines of this production far more effective as the vehicle for one of history's most famous duels. True, by now most historians have abandoned the notion that the fatal bullets came from Brown; however, this is the tale of popular culture as it was told for generations, not as nuclear scientists have most lately emended it.

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
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 Roger 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 canceled Corman's policy. It took several days of negotiation to get their status restored, and to resume production.

Goofs
Hermann Goering was not assigned to the Flying Circus until he took over as its commander several months after Manfred von Richthofen's death. Also, his later reputation notwithstanding, there is no evidence that Goering ever machine-gunned civilians or committed other atrocities as a World War One fighter pilot.

Quotes
Canadian Reporter: Lieutenant Brown, the readers of the Toronto Star want to know about Canada's newest Ace.
Roy Brown: What is there to know? I'm just a technician; I change things.
Canadian Reporter: Change things?
Roy Brown: Put a plane in front of me, with a man in it, I change them into a wreck and a corpse.
Canadian Reporter: Well... well how do you like France?
Roy Brown: It's a nice country, isn't it? Lots of my friends will be staying after the war.
Canadian Reporter: Ah... how do you like the French girls, Lieutenant?
Roy Brown: With both their arms and legs, I think.
Canadian Reporter: [coughs] ... the German planes, are they dangerous?
Roy Brown: The Germans, they're dangerous. The planes, they're dangerous too. They kill as many Germans as we do, the same way ours do us.
Canadian Reporter: But now that we outnumber the Germans, we're... we're winning, aren't we?
Roy Brown: How in Christ's name do I know? I go out in the morning and try to stay alive till I run out of petrol. One day I come back and they tell me I'm an Ace.
Canadian Reporter: But you've... you've shot down eight German planes!
Roy Brown: Is it eight? God Almighty I thought it was a hundred. I keep shooting him down but he's always up there in the morning. How the hell do I know who's winning the war? One of these mornings...
Canadian Reporter: One of these mornings, it'll all be over.
Roy Brown: How can it be over? There's still some of us alive. They wouldn't end it with any of us alive, now would they?

Crazy credits
The name of the German ace that brought Richthofen into his squadron at the beginning of the film was spelled wrongly as "Boelke" in the credits. His name was Oswald BOELCKE.