Aces High (film)

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Cover Art of the UK DVD release

Aces High is a 1976 World War I film starring Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Plummer and Simon Ward. Screenplay by Howard Barker, based on the 1930s play Journey's End by R. C. Sherriff and the memoir Sagittarius Rising by Cecil Lewis of the Royal Flying Corps, it tells the story of an RFC squadron in the first war and the high turnover of pilots and the strain on the suvivors and includes aerial dogfight scenes impressive for the time it was filmed.

1 Plot
2 Features
3 Cast
4 External links

[edit] Plot

This film follows pretty much the same theme as other World War One squadron movies, most notably "The Dawn Patrol" with Errol Flynn - with a commanding officer who has grown jaded at having to send young pilots out to die - but succeeds as a very character driven piece.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film opens with Maj. Gresham speaking to a class of students at a British public school. Back at his base, a batch of new recruits shows up and one of them is the younger brother, Lt. Croft, of his girlfriend. Already he relies on drink just to bring himself to go up. Now the strain of being responsible for his, we assume, fiancee's brother is weighing on him. Croft has to learn how to survive not only in the air, but on the ground as well as he initially makes some minor missteps in squadron etiquette. The film reaches its tragic conclusion when, in the final battle Croft finally scores his first victory and seems to have made the leap in skills necessary to survive, when he is suddenly killed in a collision with a German plane. This seems to be the final straw for Gresham, though he will continue to do his duty.

[edit] Features

There are many positive aspects on this film around the atmosphere and the scenery. The squadron depicted is the No. 56 Squadron RAF that became famous with its aces. The airfield and the barracks are very realistic of the World War I days and the planes flown, although not real SE5 but converted Stampe SV-4s, are still pretty similar and the camouflage used authentic. No such luck though with the German planes. There is , however, a real Avro 504 used in the film, while the Nieuport plane that 'Uncle' says is the one preferred by Gresham is nothing but another film SE5.

The only exaggeration is the ‘mutineer’ officer who denies fighting and tries to escape his duty. Yet, some other figures in the film come from real stories of the RFC days, like the pilot who prefers to jump off his plane and gets killed before he is slowly roasted in his cockpit. The role played by Christopher Plummer (‘Uncle’) is noble and characteristic of the human warrior who tries to overcome with a smile the cruelty of this war. Another truth depicted in the film is the denial for parachutes to the pilots in World War I, ending with a rather unnatural mockery of the ‘brush’ when a high ranking officer ,Lt Colonel Silkin (Trevor Howard), tells to the others around the table about pulling strings using the beauty of his own wife.