Michael York playes Geoffrey Richter-Douglas, a lieutenant in the British army who is not being sent to the front in France but rather to Germany: he is made an agent and commanded to spy on the construction of Germany's latest airship, the LZ36. The Germans accept Richter-Douglas's fake identity and take him on an airship mission to Scotland... 'Zeppelin' is an on the whole well-acted and well-made war film: Great care has been taken to get World War I uniforms and technology right. The film does suffer from some elements of weakness, though. Most important among these is the idea around which the plot revolves. It was certainly not beyond the Germans to try to destroy the British state archives (which had been evacuated to Scotland), but the assumption that this would have caused an immediate collapse of British morale and the decision to sue for peace seems far-fetched. The plot has some weaknesses, too. While the climactic fight in the Scottish castle has been filmed well, the following fight of the Zeppelin with the British war planes seems to have come as a kind of after thought. Still, if you are prepared to suspend disbelief long enough to accept the premise of the film and to overlook the weaknesses in its structure, this is a highly enjoyable adventure.
Review of Zeppelin
