The Blue Max theatrical poster 1966 color added 2016
by David Lee Guss
Title
The Blue Max theatrical poster 1966 color added 2016
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
"The Blue Max is a 1966 British war film in DeLuxe Color and filmed in CinemaScope, about a German fighter pilot on the Western Front during World War I. It was directed by John Guillermin, stars George Peppard, James Mason and Ursula Andress, and features Karl Michael Vogler and Jeremy Kemp. The screenplay was written by David Pursall, Jack Seddon, and Gerald Hanley, based on the novel of the same name by Jack D. Hunter as adapted by Ben Barzman and Basilio Franchina.
In contrast to films that romanticize the Flying Aces of the Great War, the protagonist of The Blue Max is depicted as a man with no conscience, no empathy, and no feelings for anyone but himself. The film also explores the decline of chivalry and the advent of total war. Furthermore, in its depiction of a conflict between an amoral officer promoted from the ranks and a principled member of the officer class, The Blue Max is similar to the 1960 film Tunes of Glory."
I first saw this film in triple bill in 1966 at the Lyceum Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota. The theater had two unusual features which stick in my mind - a several hundred feet sloping up ramp to the concession stand and several metal poles extending from the ceiling to the floor placed along the aisles next to the seats.
Despite a $50,000 remodeling in 1954 to accommodate Cinemascope the poles remained, a vestige from 1911 when the theater first opened, built in the Neo-Classical style.
My last visit to the Lyceum was in mid 1972 when it had become a porn house, the Las Vegas Cinema.
A high school friend (and fellow theater and film lover), the late Dick Gibbons, had a summer job managing the porn house and the World Theater across the street. He gave me a guided tour of the theater, especially the projection booth.
The booth had monitors for overhead cameras mounted high in both the men and ladies bathrooms.
I first regularly went to the Lyceum in the mid 1950's to catch a retrospective of Val Lewton RKO produced horror films. An attendant had a fancy uniform complete with gold braids. I always saw him just hanging about at subsequent visits over the years.
And there he was again in 1972, only now his job was to look at the bathroom camera monitors. I asked Dick about him and he told me that the man lived in a cramped apartment above the theater, He had no other life.
The Las Vegas Cinema closed in 1976 and was leveled soon after. I wonder from time to time what ever became of the man with the imposing uniform.
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November 8th, 2016
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