Best WWI air combat movies?

Well, how about it? Any recomendations?

I love the Blue Max and the one with the actress from the Sound of Music in it.

My favourite is Aches High. Great movie, great story.

CMD: Confidence in Mechanical Detail!

Yes those two are my favourites too. Some artistic license with some plane types in Aces High but the acting and story are top notch.

Hells Angels has its moments .

Can't leave out Wings. That sucker needs to come out on DVD

I think the Julie Andrews one is called "Darlin' Lilli" or something very like that. Not bad.

Didn't much like Aces High, rather wooden acting, the Stampe SE5 conversions are less convincing than the Blue Max replicas, and they'd have been better leaving it out altogether that pitting a (red-painted!) Fokker Eindecker replica against 1917-18 planes. Ugh!

Being based on a racy novel, Blue Max has its less interesting moments, but it has much more attention to detail in the planes (albeit there's some converted Tiger Moths, but you get Pfalz, D7, SE5 and triplane replicas), a great storyline, good acting, and many scenes that just make your neck tingle, starting right at the opening sequence, where infantryman "Bruno Stachel" looks up from the mud and the rats on hearing the sound of aero engines, and you look up with him, and there, suddenly, are those planes, wheeling about in the clear sky, "tack-tack-tack-tack-tack..". Nothing touches it, or probably ever will. A must have.

Not strictly WW1 but I'd also quite highly recommend "The Great Waldo Pepper". Post-WW1 barnstorming but with the War hovering in the background and coming to the fore when Robert Redford meets "Ernst Udet" on a movie location and they re-stage a dogfight in Camel (IIRC)and Dr1. Lots of great flying scenes and a good story, at turns funny and tragic.

But you've GOT to have the Blue Max. Accept no substitutes.

Ivor, wasn´t the german ace meeting robert redford called Kessler ?

I'm sure you're right Boandlgramer, tho I'm sure the character was based on Udet whi did the barnstorming thing in the US.

Nice show wasn't it? I especially like the scene where Pepper/Redford outwits his rival barnstormer who tries to muscle in on Pepper's audience. Remember that look, when his wheel falls off, on takeoff? Priceless!!

yes it was a very good movie.

Sorry I have to disagree there Ivor for the first time

The actors in Aces High are superb, Malcolm McDowell, Trevor Howard, Sir John Gielgud, Christpher Plummer are some of the finest English actors and that's how English officers would have behaved then, very formal etc.

Well, Pov, I just got the Blue Max on DVD today - had the video for a while - and it looks just as good as it did when I first saw it in the Cinema over 30 years ago. OK they have maltese crosses not greek and they overdid the lozenge fabric a bit but the attention to detail is pretty good overall and for me it's the best WW1 flying movie I ever expect to see. RB3D in its current form does a rather good job of recreating that Blue Max feeling, for me anyway, and probably for that reason I expect it'll be my no.1 WW1 sim for a long while, WoW notwithstanding.

Also got a second hand copy of Rowan's Dawn Patrol, 1995, an RB1/RB2 competitor presumably, will see if DOSbox can get that running on my machine. Gotta have 'em all, bit of a collector at heart :rolleyes:

Surprised no one has mentioned the all time classic "Dawn Patrol", with Errol Flynn and David Niven.

Ivor yes I bought the Blue Max on DVD too superb film in it's own right let alone WW1. RB3D especially with one of the top mods like FCJ, HA or WPF is the definitive WW1 sim. All others have a long way to go to surpass it for depth, immersion
etc

It's not strictly a narrative, but the Canadian NFB docu-drama Aces: A Story of the First Air War is one of the best collections of WW1 flight footage I have come across.

Done as a grandfather's recollection to his son, it tells a tale of the progress of flight and its impact in wartime.

I also agree with Polovski. Aces High was a fine film. A little wonky on the historical opponents but enjoyable. The scene where Malcolm stands up to address the students and it suddenly cuts to him frantically changing a lewis ammo drum is some great film making. You get a real sense of the panic involved in combat.

S!

Yes Polovski, RB3D will take some beating. Yes it has little fits of stuttering and yes you get some sky banding sometimes and the view system is a bit whacky, the AI can't get you on the deck and overdoes the roller-coaster act; but it's very rare in that it's got depth as well as breadth and the graphics with the wrappers and latest patches are pretty hot even now. Still the Gold Standard. A good lesson in How To Do a Sim, pity few devs are paying attention anymore.

I cant get Dawn Patrol to run on my setup with DOS Box... The graphics are garbled... If anyone has a fix, please e-mail me! ArgonV at AOL dot COM

No joy with Dawn Patrol on XP at the first attempt, possibly messed up the game's video setup routine as I get 3 Empire logos side by side and a hang-up when I try to run in DOSBox, will have another go this evening probably.

I agree it's good. It would be superb with trackir working. I've been trying to use that Trackmapper http://kaf.tri6.net/trackmapper/
but no luck yet.
I can get the mouse moving great as per trackir in both F1 and F2 views, but I cannot get the views themselves.
Do any of you geniuses want to download it and have a go at getting it working?
A Blue Max will be awarded to whoever achieves it for us, and by Ursula Andress herself
ood

Well I can't as I don't have TrackIR yet, but thinking about it.

Hey, you weenies, get your own thread! I want to hear about MOVIES...

To be honest I don't think there's ever been a truly great WW1 aviation film and only a handful of good ones - although having said that there's a lot I've never seen and I've not seen any non-English language WW1 air war films. I'd personally give top marks to Dawn Patrol (the 1938 EF/DN version mentioned above) - although it's not perfect by any means it's still one of my favourite films. The Blue Max is quite good as well. Just for fun I also enjoy the 'Zeppelin!' film with Michael York.

There's a good list of aviation films here:

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

Just a shame they aren't all available on DVD...

Have fun
Finn