''Aces High'' is a 1976

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...

starring

Malcolm McDowell Malcolm McDowell (born Malcolm John Taylor; 13 June 1943) is a British actor, producer, and television presenter. He is best known for portraying Alex DeLarge in ''A Clockwork Orange.'' He was born in the Horsforth suburb of Leeds and raised i ...

Peter Firth Peter Macintosh Firth (born 27 October 1953) is an English actor. He is best known for his role as Sir Harry Pearce in the BBC One programme '' Spooks''; he is the only actor to have appeared in every episode of the programme's ten-series lif ...

Christopher Plummer Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian actor. His career spanned seven decades, gaining him recognition for his performances in film, stage, and television. He received multiple accolades, inc ...

and

Simon Ward Simon Anthony Fox Ward (16 October 194120 July 2012) was a British stage and film actor. He was known chiefly for his performance as Winston Churchill in the 1972 film ''Young Winston''. He played many other screen roles, including those of Sir ...

. The film, which is an Anglo-French production, is based on the 1928 play ''

Journey's End ''Journey's End'' is a 1928 dramatic play by English playwright R. C. Sherriff, set in the trenches near Saint-Quentin, Aisne, towards the end of the First World War. The story plays out in the officers' dugout of a British Army infantry c ...

'' by R. C. Sherriff with additional material from the memoir ''Sagittarius Rising'' by Cecil Lewis. It was directed by

Jack Gold Jacob M. "Jack" Gold (28 June 1930 – 9 August 2015) was a British film and television director. He was part of the British realist tradition which followed the Free Cinema movement. Career Jacob M. Gold was born in London, the son of Ch ...

. The screenplay was written by

Howard Barker Howard Barker (born 28 June 1946) is a British playwright, screenwriter and writer of radio drama, painter, poet, and essayist writing predominantly on playwriting and the theatre. The author of an extensive body of dramatic works since the 197 ...

. ''Aces High'' turns the

trench warfare Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. Trench warfare became ar ...

of ''Journey's End'' into the aerial battles fought above the Western Front by the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in 1917. The film covers a week of a squadron where the high death rate puts an enormous strain on the surviving pilots. Many characters and plot lines are loosely based on those of ''Journey's End'': the idealistic new officer who is killed at the end, and whose sister is the girlfriend of his tough but alcoholic commanding officer, the kindly middle-aged second-in-command (known as "Uncle" by the younger officers) who is killed on a dangerous intelligence-gathering mission ordered by the top brass, and the officer whose claims of neuralgia are taken to be cowardice.

Plot

In October 1916, fighter ace John Gresham (

) speaks to the senior class at

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, ...

. A year later, new recruit, 2nd Lt. Croft (

), arrives at Gresham's temporary base in northern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. Gresham had been his house captain at Eton and is also the boyfriend of Croft's older sister. Gresham relies on alcohol to continue flying because of severe combat stress. Faced with being responsible for the safety of Croft (and the potential impact his loss would have on his sister), Gresham drinks even more heavily. Croft is forced to learn quickly on how to survive - both in the air and on the ground - because aerial combat and squadron etiquette are both merciless. In his week-long rite of passage from naive schoolboy to military pilot, his youthful adoration of Gresham is replaced with respect as he comes to understand the severe strain endured by his commanding officer. By the end of the week, Croft seems to have acquired the necessary combat skills when he shoots down his first plane. However, he is suddenly killed in an air-to-air collision with a German aircraft. Back at base, Gresham sees an apparition of an uninjured, smiling Croft through his office window. After the image fades, Gresham orders the next young replacement pilots to be brought in for his inspection.

Cast

(Name in brackets for the equivalent character in ''Journey's End''.)

Production

Development

The idea for the film came from producer Benny Fisz, who had served in the RAF in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, who pitched the idea of remaking ''Journey's End'' to British director

. Although initially wary of it being an aviation film, Gold agreed after

revised the screenplay. Gold said he was attracted to the film because "That was innocence, extreme youth, marred lives of these pilots who knew they are going to die. And we could show not only chivalry and bravery but also the fear." "What interests me is human relationships," said Gold. "''Aces High'' has aerial battle scenes but they're not just thrown in. It has songs but they're not just cue music. They do tell something about the characters." The movie was co-financed by

EMI Films EMI Films was a British film studio and distributor. A subsidiary of the EMI conglomerate, the corporate name was not used throughout the entire period of EMI's involvement in the film industry, from 1969 to 1986, but the company's brief conne ...

Casting

Peter Firth and Christopher Plummer joined Malcolm McDowell, who agreed to appear in the film because Gold had such a good reputation among actors at the time.

Filming

The shooting schedule took seven weeks with one week for rehearsal. Exteriors were shot in

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and

Southern England Southern England, or the South of England, also known as the South, is an area of England consisting of its southernmost part, with cultural, economic and political differences from the Midlands and the North. Officially, the area includes ...

with principal photography at Booker Airfield,

High Wycombe High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe ( ), is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England. Lying in the valley of the River Wye, Buckinghamshire, River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, it is west-northwest of Charing Cross in London, ...

, Buckinghamshire, as well as

St Katharine Docks St Katharine Docks is a former dock and now a mixed-used district in Central London, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and within the East End. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, immediately downstream of the Tower of London an ...

and

. Interiors were completed at Pinewood Studios. The production paid close attention to authenticity with First World War era equipment being used throughout the film such as the airfield facilities, barracks and motor transport. The depicted squadron (known as 76 Squadron) is loosely based on 56 Squadron, which flew the S.E.5 that regained Allied air superiority in mid 1917. Some scenes are based on real RFC stories, such as pilots choosing between jumping to their deaths or burning alive in their aircraft (as they were not issued parachutes). The juvenile mess room songs and young pilots "public school" attitudes capture the fatalistic attitudes of the time, when the life expectancy of a new pilot could be measured in weeks.

Aerial sequences

Although the film reused some aerial sequences from ''

The Blue Max ''The Blue Max'' is a 1966 British war film directed by John Guillermin and starring George Peppard, James Mason, Ursula Andress, Karl Michael Vogler, and Jeremy Kemp. The film was made in DeLuxe Color and filmed in CinemaScope. The plot i ...

'' (1966) and ''

Von Richthofen and Brown ''Von Richthofen and Brown'', alternatively titled ''The Red Baron'', is a 1971 war film directed by Roger Corman and starring John Phillip Law and Don Stroud as Manfred von Richthofen and Roy Brown. Although names of real people are used and ...

'' (1971), the producers shot their own flight scenes. All British S.E.5s were heavily modified Stampe SV.4s, a Belgian two-seat trainer that first flew in the 1930s. Sinclair's plane was a period

Avro 504 The Avro 504 was a First World War biplane aircraft made by the Avro aircraft company and under licence by others. Production during the war totalled 8,970 and continued for almost 20 years, making it the most-produced aircraft of any kind tha ...

.Carlson 22. p. 50. German aircraft were all adapted post-WWI aircraft except for a replica Fokker E-III . The reproduction is seen when it is brought down intact and its pilot given a toast by his British counterparts. Production stills show Malcolm McDowell (Gresham) posing with a Bristol M.1C but this particular plane does not appear in the finished film. Director Jack Gold later recalled "It was very difficult to obtain those planes. Sometimes we used models or archive footage. Action sequences in the air were very difficult to make and they were also very much tied with story. I had great assistant in Derek Cracknell and great specialist for special effects."

Release

The film was not shown in US cinemas. HBO premiered it in 1979.

Reception

Film historian Michael Paris saw ''Aces High'' as another of the period films that attempted to "de-mystologise" warfare. Film archivist and historian Stephen Pendo saw the "good aerial photography by Gerry Fisher" as the strength of a film that played more as "standard fare".

Legacy

The song " Aces High" by

Iron Maiden Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band formed in Leyton, East London, in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. While fluid in the early years of the band, the lineup for most of the band's history has consisted of Harri ...

is named after and inspired by the film, although takes place during the

, whereas the film takes place in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

frequently name songs after war films."92 Squadron - Geoffrey Wellum."
''RAF website'', 2 March 2009. Retrieved: 29 June 2017. The episode of ''

Blackadder Goes Forth ''Blackadder Goes Forth'' is the fourth series of the BBC sitcom ''Blackadder'', written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, which aired from 28 September to 2 November 1989 on BBC1. The series placed the recurring characters of Blackadder, Bald ...

'' titled " Private Plane", during the aerial sequence, reuses scenes from ''Aces High''."Trivia: 'Private Plane'."
''

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

'' Retrieved: 29 June 2017.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* Beck, Simon D. ''The Aircraft Spotter's Film and Television Companion''. Jefferson, North Carolina, 2016. . * Carlson, Mark. ''Flying on Film: A Century of Aviation in the Movies, 1912–2012''. Duncan, Oklahoma: BearManor Media, 2012. . * Orriss, Bruce W. ''When Hollywood Ruled the Skies: The Aviation Film Classics of World War I.'' Los Angeles: Aero Associates, 2013. . * Paris, Michael. ''From the Wright Brothers to Top gun: Aviation, Nationalism, and Popular Cinema.'' Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995. . * Pendo, Stephen. ''Aviation in the Cinema''. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1985. .

External links

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allmovie/synopsis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aces High (Film) 1976 films British war films Films about the Royal Air Force World War I aviation films World War I films based on actual events Films directed by Jack Gold Western Front (World War I) films EMI Films films Films shot at EMI-Elstree Studios 1970s English-language films 1970s British films