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Aces High showed up on a YouTube site specialising in forgotten movies- and was the only title I recognised. I'd always wanted to see it.
Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Plummer, Simon Ward, Peter Firth: Quite a cast. With surprisng cameos from John Gielgud, Ray Milland, Trevor Howard, Richard Johnson.
And an impressive attempt at authenticity. The French are played by real French people, the Germans by real Germans. And where- in 1976- did they find so many planes? SE5s for the Brits, Albatrosses for the Germans. Pity the flying sequences had to be done over what was rather obviously the peaceful English countryside, but how do you fake up several miles of the Western Front on a limited budget before the days of CGI?
The script was based, but no slavishly, on R.C. Sherrif's Journey's End, with grace notes from Cecil Lewis's Memoir Sagittarius Risiing. I've read them both.
Those planes! Box kites fitted out with engines. A rudder flips from side to side; what's it made of? Plywood?
The horror. Not only the fear and the dying, but the class prejudice, the wrongness of life in uniform, the girls resorting to prostitution, the having to be so bloody cheerful when you're emptied out of all soft emotions.....
There's nothing we haven't seen before but it's an honourable trip down that Long Trail A-winding. I don't know why it's been forgotten.
Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Plummer, Simon Ward, Peter Firth: Quite a cast. With surprisng cameos from John Gielgud, Ray Milland, Trevor Howard, Richard Johnson.
And an impressive attempt at authenticity. The French are played by real French people, the Germans by real Germans. And where- in 1976- did they find so many planes? SE5s for the Brits, Albatrosses for the Germans. Pity the flying sequences had to be done over what was rather obviously the peaceful English countryside, but how do you fake up several miles of the Western Front on a limited budget before the days of CGI?
The script was based, but no slavishly, on R.C. Sherrif's Journey's End, with grace notes from Cecil Lewis's Memoir Sagittarius Risiing. I've read them both.
Those planes! Box kites fitted out with engines. A rudder flips from side to side; what's it made of? Plywood?
The horror. Not only the fear and the dying, but the class prejudice, the wrongness of life in uniform, the girls resorting to prostitution, the having to be so bloody cheerful when you're emptied out of all soft emotions.....
There's nothing we haven't seen before but it's an honourable trip down that Long Trail A-winding. I don't know why it's been forgotten.
