GB / US
1966
2hrs 36mins
Dir: John Guillermin
Starring: George Peppard and James Mason
A young German pilot sets his sights on winning the country’s highest medal for valour, the ‘Blue Max’, for which he must shoot down 20 aircraft
This DeLuxe Color Anglo-American war drama, based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Jack D. Hunter, was a critical and commercial success. It is particularly noteworthy for the way in which it depicts the aerial flying scenes which, despite the unavoidable historical inaccuracies are considered hugely realistic. There is some excellent formation flying and the stunt sequences include two pilots flying their Fokker Dr.1 triplanes through the arches of a railway viaduct. The film was shot in Ireland and the railway bridge used for these exhilirating stunts was the Carrickabrick Viaduct, which spans the River Blackwater in Fermoy, County Cork. Pilots from the Irish Air Corps helped recreate the live dog-fight scenes, supported by number of civilians, including noted stunt pilots Charles Boddington and Derek Piggott. Piggott was the only pilot willing to fly beneath the spans of the bridge. Taking the role of both German pilots and with multiple takes from contrasting camera angles, he ended up flying 15 times under the wide span of the Carrigabrick (or Carrickabrick) Railway Viaduct, and a further 17 times under the narrower span. The two Fokker Dr.I triplanes were replicas, and they had only about four feet of clearance on each side when passing through the narrower span. He was able to fly through the arch reliably by aligning two scaffolding poles, one in the river and one on the far bank. The director had placed a flock of sheep next to the bridge so that they would scatter as the aircraft approached to show that the stunt was real and not simulated with models. However, by later takes, the sheep had become accustomed to the aircraft, and had to be scared by the shepherd instead!
