Fall of the Old Order

Returning to Blue Max after many years, this time I was struck by how much of a movie marketed as a "action air picture" in the 60s was also looking at how the established order of things was getting unglued by the end of WW I.

First off, you have the son of an inn worker stepping into the Prussian Officer Class - not something that would have happened anywhere in Europe in the glory days of the 19th Century.

And what about this new breed of officer? He wants a piece of the upper class world, he's representing a cold modern world in which personal ambition trumps honor or traditions - he wants to be as good as the aristocrats - in or out of bed.

And it's time of air planes and machine guns and gas and attacks on civilians. By the time the main action in the movie starts, we've already had the Russian Revolution.

So while James Mason cynically manipulates to save his Old Germany, Bruno is the face of the rest of the century - and it's going to be a bloody and ruthless one.