the score to perform on his television program Previn and the Pittsburgh in 1978 on the episode "Music that Made the Movies". Five tracks of music from the film ("Overture", "First Flight", "The Bridge", "The Attack" and "Finale") were recorded on 11 March 1987, at Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London, and are incorporated as Tracks 1–5 into the CD, Goldsmith Conducts Goldsmith, played by the Philharmonia Orchestra and subsequently released by Silva Screen Records in 2002 (FILMCD336), though it had been originally released in 1989 by the Decca Record Co. Ltd./Filmtrax plc. Reception Critical Although The Blue Max was seen as a quasi-historical account, some critics decried what they considered an intrusive sub-plot tying a World War I story into the "modern theme of the corruption of the military-industrial complex." Even though the music and the flying scenes were considered the film's redemption, some aviation observers criticised what they thought was a wooden characterisation by Peppard's performance of a dog-fighting combat pilot from military aviation's heroic age. Robert Alden of The New York Times wrote, "What is by far the best thing about 'The Blue Max' ... is that this élan, this glory, is captured on film once again. With the technological improvements of the years, the skies were never bluer or wider, the war in the air or on the ground never more realistic ... The question each filmgoer will have to ask himself is how much of what is bad in 'The Blue Max' is he willing to take in exchange for what is good. Much of the earthbound drama of this lengthy film is tangled, confusing, clumsy." Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called it "a World War I combat drama with some exciting aerial sequences helping to enliven a somewhat grounded, meller (sic) script in which no principal character engenders much sympathy." Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times wrote of the film that "The aerial dogfights have thrilling impact ... Its fault is that it doesn't give one anybody to pull for, so that aside from admiration for the men who fly these flimsy, antiquated crates one's sympathies are rarely engaged." Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post wrote that "the flight sequences and the fantastically frail-looking planes run away with the picture ... Director John Guillemin rightly makes the most of Skeets Kelly's aerial photography and those fabulous flying crates, but on the ground he