Aces High

***What was it like to be a fighter pilot in WW1?*** An inexperienced young Brit straight from the academy (Peter Firth) arrives on the Western front in northern France to assist in the air war against the Germans during WW1. One week in the lives of the pilots of a Royal Flying Corps squadron is chronicled as they struggle with the stresses & risks intrinsic to their profession. Malcolm McDowell plays the Major, Christopher Plummer the Captain and Simon Ward an anxiety-stricken colleague. "Aces High" (1976) came out a decade after the exceptional “The Blue Max” (1966) with the former addressing British pilots and the latter Germans. While “Blue Max” is all-around superior and more epic, “Aces High” ain’t no slouch. It successfully brings you back in time to see what it was like for men in the brand new profession of fighter piloting. This is a “man’s movie” in the manner of, say, “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962), but a few females show up in the last act. The film runs 1 hour, 54 minutes, and was shot in England (Buckinghamshire, Essex & Eton College with studio work done in Hertfordshire). GRADE: B/B-