Beautiful film with good flying but full of historical inaccuracies (and in this clip, a continuity error):
At a distance Richthofen's plane (he is shown here flying a Pfalz) has a black-white-black fuselage band behind the cockpit. Closeups however, show a checkerboard band painted on the fuselage behind him. When he climbs out after landing (a closeup) the fuselage band is black-white-black...
Historical errors of the film:
1) The Fokker D.VII arrived late in the war early 1918 and would not have been found at Richthofen's first unit as seen in the film.
2) Richthofen never served in the same unit at the same time with Hermann Göring as portrayed in this movie. I've not seen evidence they ever even met. Göring did take command of JG 1 (Richthofen's squadron) months after Richthofen's death.
3) Lanoe Hawker was flying a pusher-type DH-2 not an S.E.5a when downed by Richthofen, who was himself flying an Albatros D.II, not the Fokker D.VII used in the film.
4) The ending: Latest research appears to point to an Australian machine-gunner several hundred yards away and to the side of Richthofen's path of flight as being the one who fired the fatal shot.
12 окт 2007
