Thanks guys. I’ll check some of those titles out on IMDB and Netflix. I wonder why the Hindenburgh diaster doesn’t seem to be very populat filmwise.
It was probably over too quickly to make good cinema. It’s not like the Titanic where you had hours waiting for the boat to sink or an earthquake movie where you can show the aftermath. With the Hindenberg you got a sudden unexpected explosion that burned out within a couple of minutes. And anyone who survived the initial disaster was safe on the ground in the middle of New Jersey.
The fact that it was a Nazi zeppelin might have something do with its lack of Hollywood appeal today. I’ve noticed some model kits of the Hindenburg now omit the swastikas on the tail.
Not all of them – although four of five probably makes a valid point. But in addition to the R-38/ZR-2, which crashed before it ever left Britain (where it was built for us), and three you mentioned (two of which were sent to their doom, as you say, by orders that ignored safety margins, the Los Angeles, built by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin for the U.S. Navy aw war reparations, flew safely from the early 1920s until 1940, when it was broken up.
The irony here being that zeppelins were viewed with disfavor by the Nazis because both Ferdinand, Graf von Zeppelin, before his death, and his successor as head of the Zeppelin Company, Hugo Eckener, were vehemently anti-Nazi. The Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg were compelled to fly the swastika as a symbol of German natioality (it being the German flag of the time), not support for the NSDAP.
As much as the Nazis disliked von Zeppelin and Eckener they sure were fond of using zeppelins as a propoganda tool (which they did every chance they got). It helped that Germany was the only country to succesfully fly them and had the only passenger service. To date the Hindenburg is still the largest thing to have ever flown (it’s also the first aircraft to have a shower onboard).
The Graf Zeppelin II was ordered destroyed by Hermann Göring himself.
This might also be of interest: Graf Zeppelin-class aircraft carrier - Wikipedia
The Doctor’s first hint (in “Rise of the Cybermen”) that he, Rose & Mickey have arrived in an Alternate London is a skyfilled with Zeppelins. (From this highly distracting page.) Action occurs on one particular airship during that two-parter.
More ideas insufficiently used by filmmakers? Why, Zeppelin attacks in WWI!
Fascinating topic! In fact, TV Tropes expounds on the Cool Airship & Zeppelins From Another World.
Not a movie, but the penultimate level of Wolfenstein is set on a Nazi Super Zeppelin and they pop up in quite a few other computer games too.
The Splendiferous Zeppelin Escapades of Filliam H. Muffman, of course.
I forget whether it was a blimp or a zeppelin, but in the first chapter of the 1939 Buck Rogers, Buck is flying an airship.