Richthofens on Film

[Barrett]

While looking at the International Movie Data Base I came across a flock of Vons in the cinema. There was a 1931 epic titled "Richthofen" starring:

Georg Burghardt .... Baron von Richthofen
Sybil Moore
Arne Molander
Helga Thomas

Anybody heard of it? Google turned up zilch.

Other Vons in films include:

Alexander (Ebermayer) von R. actor, 2nd unit dir
Christian von R
Wolfgang von R
Oswald von R director, writer,
Gerhard von R producer

I remember seeing a Richthofen in
the credits in ,"Cabaret"

In the listings of holdings at the George H. Williams World War I Aviation Library, Special Collections of the Eugene McDermott Library, the University of Texas at Dallas, the following appears:

"Richthofen" - (length - 500 ft.) - (Running time - 20 min)

Extracted scenes from a German movie made in the late 1920s. No World War I aircraft appear other than in newsreel type scenes that were inserted into the film.

This may be one of those films which is mostly "lost" forever.

http://www.utdallas.edu/library/special/av...tion/ww1g7.html

[Gregvan]

Hi All,

I have seen some, but not all, of Hugh Wynne's excerpts from the original 1931 film. It seems to have been a silent, and the scenes I have from UTD have English titles in between the scenes ! The only scenes I've seen concern the death of MvR. They were filmed with the Sarotti SP-5, an odd little triplane hybrid. According to Evan Hadingham's "The Fighting Triplanes". "Some time after the war a few triplanes were built in Germany. The Sarotti Chocolate Company hired Max Schüler to fly one around Germany to advertise their product. This aircraft was written off in 1926, but parts from it are thought to have been used in the Sarotti SP-5, a hybrid Dr I used..in films."

The scenes I've seen have the triplane coming in to make a good landing (would have been too expensive to crash it), and British troops coming up to examine it, only to find the pilot (MvR) dead. The film makers then go to great lengths to re-create the funeral, with RAF officers carrying the coffin, the Australian honor guard, etc - obviously based on the actual film of the real event. They also include a scene of a message being dropped on a German aerodrome with photos and the message of von R's death. The whole film has a docu-drama feel about it.

Of course, von Richthofen "appeared" in some other films of the era. "Hell's Angels" has him flying a Fokker D VII with his name painted beside the cockpit! Then there are those "pseudo-Richthofens" in other films: Captain von Kellermann in "Wings", the so-called "Red Ace" in "Lilac Time", and the dastardly "von Richter" in 'Dawn Patrol".

The definitive MvR film is yet to be done. He makes a brief appearance in "The Blue Max" , of course, and in the unlikely person of John Philip Law in "Von Richthofen and Brown", which had some nice flying scenes but the less said about the plot and acting, the better.

Greg

[Barrett]

Seems there was a forgettable Richard Burton film in the 70s called "The Baron" which was not a-tall based on MvR. Burton played a postwar character with some flashbacks or somethin' from TBM.
The Indiana Jones segment has been mentioned a time or two, and as I recall that may have been the best film depicton of The Von to date, short as it was.