The Red Baron Flies....Again

Posted by Christopher Eger Aug 31, 2007

Ever since Howard Hughes combed the nation for every barnstormer he could find to make Wings, the public has been in love with the whole bi-plane knight of the air movie genre. It always seems that the good old WWI biplanes and triplanes always come back. Remember George “A Team” Peppard’s Blue Max and the more modern CGI flick Fly Boys to name a few.

Now we see a new film The Red Baron ( Der Rote Baron in Germany) set to come upon us. It of course is based on the holy grail of WWI aces, Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen. The Bloody Red Baron, originally a cavalryman but not actually a baron, achieved no less than 80 victories in personal combat on the western front before being killed just before his twenty-seventh birthday. He has been immortalized in combat with Snoopy, fought in a dozen video games, referenced in numerous novels, and is currently rumored to fly frozen pizza to a grocery store near you.

The new movie (actually at least the second movie about the baron using the same imaginative title) is set to release this year. It stars 26 year old (good casting!) German actor

Matthias Schweighöfer as the Baron and Joseph Fiennes as the Canadian pilot that allegedly shot him down. I say allegedly because more people have been attributed to killing the Red Baron than there are JFK conspiracies.

Regardless, I think Ill be in the front row.

Eating a pizza.

With Snoopy.