The Blue Max

The Blue Max is a 1966 British war film directed by John Guillermin and starring George Peppard, James Mason, Ursula Andress, Karl Michael Vogler, and Jeremy Kemp. The film was made in DeLuxe Color and was one of the last movies filmed in CinemaScope. The plot is about a German fighter pilot on the Western Front during World War I. The screenplay was written by David Pursall, Jack Seddon, and Gerald Hanley, based on the novel of the same name by Jack D. Hunter as adapted by Ben Barzman and Basilio Franchina. In contrast to films that romanticize the flying aces of the Great War, The Blue Max depicts the protagonist as a man who appears to have no regard for anyone but himself. Set against the realities of modern warfare, the film also explores the decline of chivalry and the advent of total war. Plot German Corporal Bruno Stachel leaves the fighting in the trenches to become a fighter pilot in the German Army Air Service. In spring 1918, he sets his sights on winning Germany's highest medal for valour, the "Blue Max", for which he must shoot down 20 aircraft.