The Blue Max

The Blue Max is an 1966 British war film about a German fighter pilot on the Western Front during World War I. It was directed by John Guillermin, stars George Peppard, James Mason and Ursula Andress, and features Karl Michael Vogler and Jeremy Kemp. 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. German Corporal Bruno Stachel leaves the fighting in the trenches to become an officer and fighter pilot in the German Army Air Service. Joining a squadron in spring... 1918, he sets his sights on winning Imperial Germany's highest military decoration for valor, the Pour le Mérite, nicknamed the "Blue Max", for which he must shoot down 20 aircraft. Coming from humble origins, Leutnant Stachel is driven to prove himself better than the aristocratic pilots in his new fighter squadron, especially Willi von Klugemann . Their commanding officer, Hauptmann Otto Heidemann is an upper-class officer whose notions of chivalry conflict with Stachel's ruthless determination. On his first mission, Stachel, in a Pfalz D.
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