To me, this movie is perfection.

Just what I expected

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

As Good As It Gets

For years, I had heard loosely about the use of zeppelins in WWI. Etienne Perier's movie "Zeppelin" does a very good job telling a specific story. It focuses on ancestrally-German Brit Geoffrey Richter-Douglas (Michael York) getting torn between allegiance to his native country and his ancestral land when he gets a chance to go to Germany to ride a zeppelin; he goes there, but of course doesn't tell his hosts that he's actually there as a UK agent. Then comes the ride aboard the zeppelin.In my opinion, probably the movie's most interesting aspect is Elke Sommer's role. Throughout the '60s, she was one of the go-to women for sex kitten roles. Here, her character is Frau Dr. Erika Altschul, the wife of the zeppelin's inventor. She's a very educated, articulate woman not about to let anyone order her around. Granted, she's still quite pretty - and in one scene, we can see from her shadow on the wall that she's taking off her clothes! - but this is a totally different kind of role for her. Of course, I praise her for accepting a new kind of role for once.Anyway, while this may not be the best movie ever, I certainly recommend it. Some of the early scenes give one the feeling of having been in England during WWI when the Germans were bombing (the truth is, we Americans have never experienced anything like that). Definitely worth seeing.

While I will admit that the plot of ZEPPELIN is okay and not the best I have ever seen, I still like this movie a lot. Michael York plays a British agent that pretends to defect in order to learn the German airship secrets. Along the way he meets the extremely attractive Elke Sommer, though what all that has to do with war, I never was really certain.The film concerns an era that we seldom talk about--WWI and the terror that seized the Allies when the Germans first rained bombs on an unsuspecting London. For the life of me, I can't recall another movie that mentions this in any way, so historically speaking this is an important topic.I was fortunate enough to have seen this film on the big screen when it first came out in the very early 1970s. I remember sitting in the first row in the balcony and watching the big screen as the Zeppelin first appeared up out of the clouds--pretty reminiscent of the shark attacking in the later film, JAWS! Much of the film is set on the dirigible, the scenery is great and the Zeppelin scenes are pretty realistic. Give it a try--it's a forgotten and worthwhile film.

While the film ends with a lot of threads still loose, the film is worth watching for great period costumes, sets, and especially the airship used by the Germans in the raid on England. Whether historically accurate or not in its design, the airship is in a lot of ways the true star of this film. The story does not fully develop the theme of divided loyalty completely and the ending seems a bit abrupt, but the action scenes are exciting and expertly directed. Great aerial footage and many scenes are filmed from very high up - you may not want to watch this one if you are scared of heights! Worth a look for World War I or aviation buffs.

Can you believe the Germans thinking they could cow Britain into surrender by--destroying the original of the Magna Carta? Can you believe taking the female sex interest, wearing a fashionable fur coat no less, along on the raid? Can you believe a Zeppelin could carry about a battalion of stormtroopers in full kit? Almost as many unintentional laughs as "Shining Through", and that's saying a lot.