Just when you think you know someone....

...something else pops up to show you that you may not have really known that person as well as you think you did.

No, this isn't going to be a post in which I complain about something gone wrong in the world - although I will admit that I'm seriously pondering a post about NObama's health care plan - but rather, it's a small glimpse at a part of me that very few people know about.

So here it is: I'm a closet lover of old movies. I don't mean old, old movies, like "Casablanca" or "Citizen Kane" or movies like that. Nah, not quite that old, although those movies are certainly great ones. I'm an admirer of movies from the early to mid 1960s, and since that was 40-odd years ago, in The Book of Craig that makes them old movies. And out of this genre, my four favorites are as follows, in no particular order: "Patton," (no surprise there, for anyone who knows me even the slightest bit) "Von Ryan's Express," "The Sand Pebbles," and the topic of today's post, "The Blue Max."

For anyone who hasn't seen it, a brief synopsis: George Peppard plays a German World War I fighter pilot named Lieutenant Bruno Stachel who starts out the war as a lowly infantryman. He makes it into the German Flying Corps and is assigned to a squadron, where he quickly becomes the #2 ace in the squadron. He is instantly enamored by two things: Germany's highest decoration for valor, oddly enough a French decoration called Pour le Merite or the "Blue Max" (because the medal is a blue enamel variation of a maltese cross), and the Countess Katie Von Klugermann, the mistress of the #1 ace in the squadron, who just happens to be played by Ursula Andress.

Oh, did I mention that not only is the Countess the wife of the area commanding general, but she is also the aunt by marriage of Stachel's rival, Lieutenant Willie Von Klugermann? You know, the guy she's having an affair with? Nothing like keeping it in the family.

The movie is fascinating in several aspects. During his quest to win the Blue Max - which you can only get by shooting down 20 enemy planes - it shows the gradual transformation of Lt. Stachel from a wet behind the ears novice pilot to a ruthless, cold-blooded killer who strives to be the absolute best at what he does - in and out of bed. Aside from setting his sights on the Blue Max, after some provocation from his rival, Lt. Von Klugermann, he also sets his sights on the Countess. Klugermann sums up Stachel's quests by comparing them to finding a bottle of champagne of 1903 vintage - "You'll find it hard to get." Of course Stachel gets both. Wouldn't be much point to him not getting them, would it?

What fascinates me about this movie - aside from the top-notch acting, the stunning locations and the absolutely magnificent real-life arial combat scenes filmed with real airplanes and none of today's computer generated crap - is the comparisons between the classes that takes place as an integral part of the movie, and Stachel's fight to overcome his family lineage which is anything but impressive and impress those of the "upper class" who are looking down their noses at him.

Which is just about everybody.

You see, it's like this: in World War I, the German Officer Corps was made up of the elite of Germany and Prussia. To get into the German Officer Corps in that time, you had to be wealthy, sophisticated, educated, and most of all, rich. If you didn't have a baron or two in your family tree, you stood little chance of ever getting in. The German Officer Corps of World War I was dedicated to fighting the war with honor and chivalry, the last war in which such values were ever applied. They were fighting to win, naturally, but they were determined to do it with honor.

Stachel did two things to alienate himself from the other officers in his unit, neither of them his fault. The first was his family - his father didn't own land, wasn't a baron, wasn't educated or rich, but was the manager of a small inn. When he reports in to his unit and his new commanding officer asks him about his family - "Who are your people?" - in front of the other officers, Stachel tells him this and earns the instant ridicule of the rest of the officers.

The second thing he did started out innocently enough, but turned tragic in more ways than one. In his first dogfight, he shot down an enemy plane but the downing wasn't witnessed by anyone, so it wasn't "confirmed" which means he didn't get credit for it. When he complains about it to his commander he's told, "It's a cruel world, Stachel." On his next mission, he and Willie Klugermann go out to shoot down an observation ballon. Stachel ends up capturing a two-seater British observation plane in the bargain, having killed the back-seat gunner during the fight. He wants credit for this kill and is determined to make a point, so he signals the pilot of the British plane to turn around and fly towards the German lines. Stachel is going to force the plane to land at the German airfield, proving his point to everyone in his squadron. An excellent plan which should do the trick, right? I mean, even Willie is impressed at what Stachel is doing.

Except that as the three planes approach the field and are getting ready to land, the British gunner proves that he isn't dead by going for his machine gun to start shooting at Stachel. Stachel has no choice but to shoot instead, and he shoots down the British plane right there over the field, killing both the gunner AND the pilot, who is basically helpless.

And in the German code of honor, you didn't kill helpless people. You can imagine how this all goes down with his squadron mates, who are left with the impression that Stachel brought the plane all the way back to their airfield to shoot it down where there would be plenty of witnesses to confirm it. After Stachel lands and his commander starts berating him for what he's done, in a fit of anger Stachel stalks over to the British plane, cuts out the registration number from the fuselage, stalks over to his commander and tosses the canvas square down on the ground in front of him. "Confirmed!" he states. "It's a cruel world, Herr Hauptmann, you said it yourself!" And then he stalks away, leaving his squadron mates looking after him in stunned disbelief.

That's about all of the plot that I want to give away, just in case anyone reading this has a mind to go rent the movie and watch it. I will tell you that watching the study in the classes, Stachel's fight to win approval, and his transformation as a fighter pilot and all of the subplots going on at the same time make this a simply fascinating movie. As I said before, the arial combat scenes are nothing short of magnificent, and Ursula Andress isn't too hard on the eyes, either.

A word of advice, though - if you're going to rent the movie, make sure you get the widescreen version. This movie, as in all movies, loses so much in the "pan and scan" technique used to make a movie fit into the dimensions of a television screen. I have the movie on VHS and am now looking for a DVD copy of it in widescreen, because you know what? Aside from the very first time I saw this movie in a theatre in Highland Springs, Virginia in the mid-'60's, I've never seen it in widescreen.

Something else you didn't know.

IHC