Aces High

Perhaps because many of the cast here all look so very young, this film has an extra potency as a depiction of some of the inexperienced fliers who fought in the Great War. It all centres around the young "Crawford" (Simon Ward) who joins a squadron commanded by "Gresham" (Malcolm McDowell) and his adjutant "Sinclair" (Christopher Plummer). Green in the extreme, he finds himself fighting for his life every time he is airborne, and he must also balance the increasingly delicate needs of his commander who must deal, on a daily basis, with the mounting death toll amongst his Royal Flying Corps airmen. Jack Gold manages to capture well the sense of foreboding and the nerve-end existence of these youngsters as well as offering us some spectacular aerial photography and combat scenes that give us an authentic looking experience of just how perilous their lives were and just how flimsy their aircraft were, too. McDowell overacts a bit, almost as much as Plummer under-delivers - neither here quite hit the spot, but Ward and Peter Firth's "Croft" do, and their efforts are convincing. Time hasn't really been so kind to this production, but forty years later it still offers a plausible glimpse into the dangers in the lives of young men who had barely learnt to shave. No, it's not the "Blue Max" (1966) but it isn't a bad attempt at telling a similar story.